Police bodycams: saving lives, reducing complaints — and a very interesting IT project
A fascinating article in ComputerWorld looks at the costs and limitations of the use of body cams by US police departments.
Body cameras are typically worn by police either on the breast or helmet, and are activated to record encounters with the public or suspected criminals, and can later be used as evidence in court. They were first used in Denmark and the United Kingdom, but are set to be taken up by many law enforcement departments in the United States in response to a number of highly publicized cases of police brutality that have not only prompted widespread protest but have resulted in costly litigation.
The two main manufacturers of these types of cameras, Taser (the same company that makes the famous stun guns) and VieVu, have supplied devices to 41 percent of the more than 18,000 police departments throughout the United States. Their business model includes not only cameras, but storage space on the cloud for video footage. In the consumer field, their equivalent would be the Narrative cameras, designed for us to record and share our everyday lives.
The cameras are not recorded at all times, and have to be activated by police officers by pressing their only button twice. The majority of officers generate between 60 and 90 minutes of video a day, and only run the camera if they believe the situation requires it. The devices record at a resolution of 480 pixels, and can store up to 8 GBs, which are uploaded to the cloud at the end of each shift. The cost of a Taser camera is between $400, for a chest-worn device, and $600 for the smaller model that can be fitted to glasses or a cap, and that is attached to a battery and external hard drive fitted to the body.
Storage costs are between $15 and $39 a month, based on the amount of footage; Taser and VieVu, which make around 15 percent on the sale of the cameras, offer deals that include replacing cameras every two-and-a-half years. The biggest cost that police departments (that means tax payers) that introduce body cameras will face is storing footage, which these two companies make around a 50 percent profit. Footage must be kept secure for lengthy periods of time, and in some cases, such as murder, indefinitely.
In short, we’re talking about a very expensive deal. In the case of the police department cited in the ComputerWorld article, there is some $180,000-worth of hardware, plus $899,000 for a contract that includes five years of storage on the cloud. But the benefits far outweigh the costs. Estimates suggest that bodycams leads to a 59 percent drop in the use of force by officers, while complaints fell by 87.5 percent. Aside from protecting the lives of officers and the public, on which no price can be put, the real savings come from the drop in lawsuits brought against the police.
No doubt police forces around the world will be watching events in the United States closely and weighing up what they see as the pros and cons.
(En español, aquí)
