The market for body-worn cameras has seen rapid expansion in the last two years. The numbers of available models has multiplied, fitting every client size and budget, and an industry shakeout is imminent.
While conducting the research for this article,
a&s wanted to pinpoint the moment in time when the market for body-worn cameras started to boom — what was the trigger? “It all started with Ferguson,” answered Brad Barnes, Law Enforcement Specialist at Vizucop. “The market has definitely exploded from that point.”
The incident Barnes is referring to is that of the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old African American man, by a white police officer from Ferguson, Missouri, U.S., which escalated into protests and riots the day following the shooting. Apart from peaceful protest, the tension between law reinforcement and protesters also escalated into vandalism, looting, rioting, arson, and firearm use. A second wave of protests erupted after a jury decided not to indict the police officer that shot Brown. Conflicting accounts and lack of video evidence made it unclear whether or not the shooting was justified.
Following the Ferguson incidents, US President Barack Obama announced his commitment to building trust and transparency between law enforcement and the communities they serve. As part of this commitment, the US Federal Government has awarded grants to law enforcement agencies to purchase law enforcement cameras. The target of this program is to help purchase 55,000 bodycams.
These grants require a 50/50 match from the agency, meaning that the government is subsidizing half of the cost. The grant can be used to purchase equipment and requires that applicants establish an implementation plan and a robust training policy before purchasing cameras. Each agency awarded a grant is responsible for developing a plan for long-term storage, including the cost of storing data. During 2015, US$19 million was allocated to different agencies (most of them small) to purchase 21,000 cameras.
Body-worn cameras are becoming common service in the U.S. and are seen everywhere from small towns to big cities. “In the next 18 months it will reach 75- to 80-percent saturation rate in the market,” predicted Barnes.
While demand for body-worn cameras has sprung up in the U.S., their use is strong all over the world, including Europe and Asia. “UK police departments have been using body-worn cameras for as long as seven years. From a percentage point of view, the percentage of police departments using body-worn video is the highest in the United Kingdom, but we are seeing a substantial global take-up of the technology,” said Jo McLean, VP for International Marketing at Reveal.
Benefits of body-worn cameras
Although research into the topic is still limited, it shows usage of body cameras by police officers has reduced the number of citizen complaints and internal investigations regarding officer misconduct.
Body-worn cameras eliminate the “he said, she said” problem, explained Barnes. It is the best way to know if officer conduct was appropriate or not or if a civilian is making false claims. Barnes gave as an example a case where a young woman stopped for drunk driving accused a police officer of sexually harassing her. Had there been a camera recording the event it would have been easy to find out the truth.
Cameras of UK-based Reveal have a front-facing screen that shows people that they are being recorded. “The front-facing screen on our body cameras has been found to have had a profound effect on the end users who wear our cameras. The screen shows people in real time what is being recorded. This means they often notice themselves being recorded which can dramatically alter their behavior. In many cases this has deterred physical and verbal aggression, protecting officers and resolving incidents quicker,” said McLean.
Coming up with the right policy
Bodycams come with many benefits but their adoption requires setting up the right policies and procedures. There are many concerns involved. Privacy issues are a concern for both sides, police officers might not want to be monitored constantly but there is also a question of what to do when the party being filmed is a minor, or a victim of violence.
Another issue is determining when the officer did not turn on the camera. “How will you deal with it? Will there be serious ramifications or only a slap on the wrist?” asked Barnes.
Typically police departments compare dispatch sheets with the camera footage. But this is a manual procedure which is both time consuming and prone to errors. “We are thinking about tying body cameras with in-car systems, or proximity sensors, but the process is not finished yet,” Barnes said.
In today’s world, the reality is that there is always a chance of someone recording an event, it can be a bystander with a smartphone, a video surveillance camera in a business, or a street camera. However these do not have the same potential of delivering a good account of the interaction between law enforcement and the public as a bodycam; they are most probably either too far, without audio, or recording started too late. The adoption of bodycams is therefore a positive step for both the public and law enforcement.