When body-worn cameras were first widely adopted, the primary challenge facing law enforcement agencies was implementation. Agencies needed policies written quickly. They needed training delivered at scale. They needed programs stood up under public, legal, and political pressure. Much of the early work in this space—ours included—was focused on helping agencies meet those immediate demands. Over time, however, the nature of the challenge changed. Body-worn camera programs ma

This investigate report (link) from the Utah Investigative Journalism Project is best understood as a "cherry-picked" records-based snapshot, not a verdict on statewide body-worn camera compliance. Its strength is straightforward: the reporting relies on agency disciplinary records and written policies , obtained through formal records requests over a defined period. That matters. The findings are rooted in what agencies documented, sustained, and acted on—not speculation o

Most agencies don’t struggle with body-worn camera review because people don’t care. They struggle because manual review does not scale . Supervisors and trainers are expected to: Watch increasing volumes of footage Apply consistent judgment across incidents Balance review with operational demands Over time, subjectivity creeps in—not from bad intent, but from fatigue, time pressure, and inconsistency. This isn’t a personnel problem. It’s a systems problem. Technology can hel

Agencies that treat body-worn cameras primarily as transparency tools usually miss their real value. BWC programs succeed or fail based on how well they function as risk-management systems —not recording devices. The questions leadership should be asking are not: Did we capture video? Did we release it on time? They should be: Are we reviewing consistently at scale? Are decisions defensible across hundreds or thousands of incidents? Are we reducing institutional risk—or simpl

At the executive level, body‑worn camera programs succeed or fail based on governance, not hardware. Policies, accountability structures, review standards, and decision rights determine whether cameras reduce risk or quietly create it. When BWC programs are treated as IT deployments rather than organizational systems, agencies often discover too late that expectations, capacity, and oversight were never aligned. Effective BWC governance requires executives to define why foot

There’s a persistent myth in policing that cameras alone drive better outcomes. They don’t. What changes behavior is what happens after the recording: How footage is reviewed How patterns are identified How lessons are fed back into training How leadership responds consistently over time Without a system, BWCs become an archive. With a system, they become feedback. The agencies seeing real value aren’t watching more video. They’re making better decisions with the video they

A New Hampshire man is facing charges for allegedly creating a “deepfake” body camera video. See the story here . While this case involves an individual who was publicly associated with the fake content, what are the implications for law enforcement agencies if this becomes a wide-spread trend by unknown perpetrators? Public trust and legitimacy issues: Erosion of credibility: If the public cannot distinguish authentic footage from fakes, confidence in actual BWC evidence may

A new audit in Philadelphia’s 24th District sampled 119 interactions from January 2025 and found that officers properly activated, categorized, and recorded footage in just over half (54 %) of the stops. Here are some key takeaways: Non-use or incorrect use of BWCs undermines policy credibility — if officers routinely skip or delay activation, the value of the system is diminished. Audits should not be one-and-done — regular, random checks help reinforce accountability.

Two officers were suspended — one for failing to report a use of force, and the other for punching a restrained individual and delaying medical care. Both incidents were captured on body-worn camera. Read about it here . The “bad news” is that these incidents happened at all. The “good news” is that the agency identified them and took corrective action. But the larger, unanswered question in the article is this: how were these incidents identified? When misconduct is caught.

On June 9th, a Colorado judge ruled that the Aurora Colorado Police Department violated the Colorado Law Enforcement Integrity Act (CLEIA) by refusing to release all unedited body-worn camera video of a fatal officer-involved shooting incident. The case focused on the meaning of the words "incident" and "uneditied". You can read this article from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press summarizing the case. The court's ruling is 13 pages long and I encourage all la

This article from the LA Times entitled " A CHP officer shot him 12 times. But with no body cameras, truth is elusive" The story is about the fatal shooting of 21 year old Sei-Jah Riveria in the early morning hours of February 26th, 2025. The article blames the California Highway Patrol for the fact their personnel do not have body cameras. To quote the article: " While there is CHP dashcam footage from that morning of Feb. 26, the shooting itself isn’t captured on camera.

For years, I’ve spoken about the three key consumers of law enforcement body-worn camera (BWC) footage, summarized by the acronym C.O.P. ...

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Body-Worn Cameras (BWC) have been in use by law enforcement well in excess of a dozen years. Why are state legislatures still struggling...

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