Key trends in Body-Worn Camera Policy and Practice: Two Year Policy Analysis

The CNA Corporation, Arizona State University (ASU), and Justice and Security Strategies (JSS) provide training and technical assistance (TTA) to law enforcement agencies who have received funding for body‐worn cameras (BWCs) through the US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) BWC Policy and Implementation Program (PIP). Administrative policy review is a central feature of TTA. The TTA team developed a BWC policy review process to assess the comprehensiveness of BWC policies, which is assessed through a BWC Policy Review Scorecard. This report describes the results of a analysis of policies from both FY 2015 and FY 2016 grantees. More specifically, the analysis includes all FY 2015 grantees which had their Scorecards approved by BJA from January 1, 2016 (the inception of the PIP program) through September 10, 2016 (n=54). The analysis also includes all FY 2016 grantees which had their Scorecards approved by BJA from November 1, 2016 through July 1, 2017 (n=75).   Through review of the 129 agency policies, we have identified 17 key BWC policy trends across seven important BWC issues. Several of the trends involve substantial policy differences between FY 2015 and FY 2016 grantees.

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