The increased use of body-worn cameras has several benefits for both citizens and police. For example, footage from the cameras can both document police misconduct and invalidate frivolous claims by citizens. When a police officer uses deadly force to subdue a suspect, citizens often call for that officer to be held accountable. Such accountability is often difficult to achieve in the absence of an objective account of the incident. Body-worn cameras can fill this gap. Several early studies have shown that officers wearing cameras are less likely to engage in misconduct. Footage can also serve as a valuable training resource for officers and departments.
As more jurisdictions implement this technology, state legislatures and municipalities are scurrying to implement guidelines for the use of body-worn cameras, and there are a myriad of concerns that these state and local bodies must address. Despite studied benefits, body-worn cameras are not a panacea for police reform. In fact, if not implemented properly and with community consultation, these cameras might undermine police departments’ relationships with the communities they serve. Using body-worn cameras without adhering to policies that increase accountability may turn these cameras into “tools of injustice.”
Furthermore, widespread implementation of police body-worn cameras will likely lead to increased surveillance of poor, urban, majority-minority communities. The increased use of body-worn cameras and other technologies to keep police accountable generates tension between the need to monitor police officers and the privacy interests of the citizens in these vulnerable neighborhoods. Urban communities already experience diminished privacy for a number of reasons, and new technologies that exacerbate these tensions may undermine police-community partnerships that are crucial to public safety in these communities. This Essay will discuss the role police body-worn cameras can play in ensuring police legitimacy by increasing transparency, deterring police and citizen misbehavior, increasing officer professionalism, providing valuable training tools, and improving evidentiary documentation when crimes occur. This Essay will also discuss the need to view body-worn cameras and similar technologies with a healthy bit of skepticism. While body-worn cameras can have a significant impact on police accountability and public safety, local officials must carefully consider camera implementation and draft clear guidelines to balance the concerns for accountability with the privacy concerns articulated below. Therefore, this Essay seeks to identify best practices for implementing body-worn camera programs and identifies some key components of body-worn camera policies that strengthen accountability. Finally, this Essay offers a Model Body-Worn Camera Policy, whose provisions are drawn from multiple policies in use nationwide. The individual components of this model policy have been evaluated by various civil rights groups and given a “green light” in terms of their ability to ensure that cameras are used to promote accountability and deter discriminatory policing.
