Body Cameras / On-Officer Camera Systems

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Course Author(s)

Eric Daigle J.D.

Course Summary

This course on On-Officer Camera Systems, commonly referred to as “Police Worn Body Cameras”, is authored by a leading national subject matter expert Eric Daigle. The course provides a very good primer on the technology and issues that law enforcement must deal with in considering and adopting this technology as another tool in their everyday policing mission.

Police worn cameras have been widely adopted as a potential deterrent by law enforcement to help mitigate faulty police actions or inaccurate complaints and lawsuits against law enforcement by citizens with the goal of increased transparency.

However, they are not perfect solution and still leave much to be desired.

In addition, they are costly and generate substantial amounts of recorded video data which must be stored by the agency or a 3rd party vendor for an extended period of time. Therefore, agencies from 10 to 1,000 and more officers will generate a substantial amount of recorded video data thereby being a very costly expense.

Agencies who have adopted this technology now know it is very time consuming and costly. When any video is requested for legal cases, certain scenes or images for privacy issues must be redacted thereby creating another expense of editing.

For individuals in criminal justice field, this is an important course to take but it comes with a learning curve and cost, and is not a perfect solution.

Course Syllabus

  • Module 1

    • SME Introduction
    • General Overview
    • Technology - On-Officer Recording Systems
    • Course Methodology
    • Areas of Concern and Challenges
    • History of Recordings
    • History of Recordings - Continued
  • Module 2

    • Implementation of Body-worn Cameras
    • Implementation of Body-worn Cameras - Continued
    • Concerns
    • Random Reviews
    • Policy Development
    • Policy Development - Continued
    • Storage Capacity and Costs
    • Storage Capacity and Costs - Continued
    • Identifying the Benefits to the Users
    • Identifying the Benefits to the Users - Continued
    • Acceptance of the Technology
    • When Should Body Cameras Be Turned On and Off
  • Module 3

    • Video Recordings and Use of Force Incidents
    • The Limitations of Body-Worn Cameras
    • Some Danger Cues Can't be Recorded - Film Speed
    • Camera May See Better in Low Light - Blocked View
    • A Camera Only Records in 2-D - Time Stamping
    • One Camera May Not be Enough - Camera Encourages Second-guessing
    • Camera Can Never Replace a Thorough Investigation
    • Viewing Videos
    • Viewing Videos - Continued
    • Notifying Citizens of Recording
    • Retention of Recordings - Use of Recordings
    • Conclusion
  • Final Assessment

    • Assessment