By Police1 Staff
With an increasing number of agencies outfitting their officers with body cameras, it is important for departments to manage the expectations of judges, oversight boards, and the public about the realities of using the technology.
The Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) has published a report outlining what agencies need to do when implementing a body-worn camera program. According to their findings, one struggle police officials have faced since the introduction of the technology is answering tough questions coming from a variety of different sources.
“If your department has a civilian review board, the expectation now is that police should have cameras,” Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank said. “If you don’t, they will ask, ‘Why don’t your officers have cameras? Why aren’t your cameras fully deployed? Why does the next town over have cameras, but you don’t?’”
Another common point of confusion is the assumption that officers will record any and every moment that occurs on duty, despite most departments having policies in place that prohibit recording in certain situations.
Courts have also begun to rely too heavily on body-worn video, according to the report. Testimony is now perceived as having lesser value than video – and a lack of video can hurt a case in the eyes of a court – in some cases, it can even result in a dismissal.
These expectations can result in an undermining of an officer’s credibility. How should police departments address these issues?
1. Agencies must provide education to oversight boards, judges and juries, and the public on when and why police officers may be unable to record video. These reasons can be policy-related (i.e. sensitivity during interviews with victims of a crime), or technical (a camera malfunction).
2. In order to aid in maintaining an officer’s credibly if the lack of video in an incident is questioned, police departments should implement policy that requires cops to articulate verbally on video or in a written report why a camera was turned off.
3. Training officers on policies and protocols is extremely important. Some agencies have had their officers use mock cameras in training sessions to better familiarize themselves with the ins and outs of the technology.
By following these guidelines, police departments should be better prepared for the challenges they may face as their oversight boards, the public, and the legal system familiarize themselves with a very new technology that is often perceived as a cure-all with little consideration for the complications involved in its use.