Police Body Worn Camera Program

About the Program

Category: Criminal Justice and Public Safety (Best in Category)

Year: 2017

The Police Body Worn Camera (BWC) program provides an additional tool for professional police officers by capturing audio-video recordings of their day-to-day activities and public engagements. The recordings can be later reviewed in an evidentiary capacity during prosecution, to investigate citizen complaints about police conduct, and serve as a training tool for police personnel. The body worn cameras serve as an important tool in the evaluation of officers' behaviors during use-of-force or critical incidents, or citizen complaints, thereby increasing the level of service provided to the public. The BWC program uses a complete enterprise solution that includes body camera hardware, various mounting options, video management software, seamless redaction tools, cloud-hosted data storage, agency configuration, implementation support, project management, training, and ongoing support and maintenance for the life of the agreement. An enterprise, or end-to-end, solution eliminates the complications of transferring data between systems, tracking chain of custody through disparate systems, and coordinating multiple vendor support operations. It achieves this by placing the responsibility on one entity for a comprehensive service and support plan. The BWC program is built upon comprehensive research and planning. It addresses the complex issues related to daily police operations with body worn cameras. The project produced policy, training and public information materials to cover topics including camera use, peripherals, indexing, retention, reproduction, logistics, training, accountability, legal constraints, technical abilities and limitations. Most importantly, the BWC program is designed to balance the competing demands for public transparency and the personal privacy of the recorded public.