Body Cameras Case Study

Of course, the big questions that remain are, where will the money for the body cameras come from and how much will it cost? Well two days prior to the grand jury decision in Garners case, President Obama announced $263 million in federal funding, for law enforcement agencies to purchase and test body worn cameras on police officers, with the purpose of improving training and bringing transparency (Sink). However, there is still is no official established rules for where the money will come from, cities throughout the US have already begun testing body cameras on police officers. Each city or state has funded them through their own method. For example, in Carlsbad California, police officers began trying out body cameras on February 2016. Their testing period went from four to six weeks. The city council approved an annual $170,000 contract plus start up fees (Avants). They projected that expense for the first year would be about $212,300, which includes equipment, officer training, and data storage. The tab for each subsequent year was projected at about $123,150 (Alfonso). There have also been suggestions for how to pay for body cameras. Once suggestion appeared in The Chicago Tribune (a daily news reporting company). Illinois lawmakers are pushing a plan to add a $5 fee into …show more content…
One camera with all its necessities costs about $1,000. According to Kotowski a third of the18, 000 state and local police departments in the U.S are already purchasing body cameras for their officer’s. However, the most expensive part is the cost of the storage for the footage. According to Kotowski it will cost about $100 per month to store footage per camera. Carlsbad Police Department is going to pay the same company that makes Tasers, to use their cloud and store footage. Footage will automatically be transferred at the end of the shift when the police officers connect their cameras to charge