Phoenix City Council authorized a request for proposal to expand the Phoenix Police Department’s body camera program over the next several years.
The police department’s goal is to purchase up to 2,000 new cameras over a five-year period.
There are 300 body cameras in use by the Phoenix Police Department, and approximately 2,900 officers. The majority of body cameras deployed are in the Maryvale precinct–a known problem area for Phoenix.
In an emailed statement, Sam Stone, chief of staff for the office of Councilman Sal DiCiccio, wrote: “Body cams improve interactions between officers and the public, on both sides. That plus the additional transparency make them worthwhile, though, quite frankly, we’d rather spend the money hiring more officers to stick those cams on first.”
This view may differ from that of the police department.
“We’re one of only three agencies in the country that was granted funding to further study the efficacy and the utility of body-worn cameras in law enforcement. This is quite an honor for the police department,” Executive Assistant Chief Michael Kurtenbach said while addressing a Public Safety and Veterans Subcommittee meeting.
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Studies on the usefulness of body cameras in police work have been limited, and expanding the experimental program to encompass such a large part of the police force may indicate plans to test how body cameras might affect an entire department.
This comes during a time when many Americans are critical of law enforcement’s use of force in several high-profile cases across the country, many of which involve shootings on the part of police. Body-worn cameras have long been touted as a potential solution to this problem.
“Even the most well-meaning police officer in the area, if you’re under stress and you have to fire your weapon, your capacity to realize what you’re doing goes right down,” said David Williams, a former police instructor and sociology professor at ASU.
“Now, thank God, most police officers live out their whole tour of duty as a police officer and retire without ever having fired their weapon in anger,” he added.
Williams was quick to express concern that the police department should be transparent with the policy officers are expected to follow while using body cameras, and particularly when the cameras are supposed to be in use.
The policy Phoenix police have used since April 2013 states that “all officers and supervisors who arrive on a scene or engage in an enforcement contact must place their VIEVU camera in the on/record mode as soon as it is safe and practical to do so.”
Contact the reporter at Dylan.Simard@asu.edu.
