NORTHAMPTON – As Massachusetts joins the national debate on whether to require police officers to wear body cameras, Senate President Stanley C. Rosenberg said understanding their use on the ground is necessary before crafting any “reasonable, fair and balanced policies.”
To that end, lawmakers have provided $275,000 to fund four police body camera pilot programs in the state, an initiative designed to expand local police departments’ access to a technology that is used sparingly across the commonwealth, including in western Massachusetts. Police departments of all sizes are invited to apply for the grants.
Many area police chiefs interviewed said they support using body cameras, touting the accountability and transparency they can bring to police work. However, they remain concerned about long-term financial costs associated with them, such as downloading and storing audio and video footage, along with more complex issues related to privacy rights and public access to recordings.
At least two bills on police body cameras are currently under debate by lawmakers, while a handful of police departments statewide, including Erving in Franklin County, have crafted their own policies on body-worn cameras and use the technology regularly.
“There’s no consistency or rules of engagement,” Rosenberg, D-Amherst, said. “We know that a lot of jurisdictions are talking about it, and a lot of jurisdictions in other states are using it. We’re looking for experience-driven policy development.
“It could be in law, it could be in regulations,” he added. “That’s why we’re heading down this path.”
Police chiefs in Northampton, Amherst and Hadley said body-worn cameras are on their radars, yet financial and practical considerations may complicate their use.
Amherst Police experimented with using body cameras in 2014, though limitations with the developing technology made it hard to gauge their effectiveness at the time, according to Chief Scott P. Livingstone, who supports their use.
“The technology just wasn’t there yet,” he said. “I think you’ll see in the not-too-distant future, officers wearing cameras of some sort.”
Livingstone said it’s important to have consistent policy statewide so that there are not hundreds of different local policies across the state. Until such time, he sees plenty of positives in the use of body-worn cameras in law enforcement, and supports audio recording as well.
“I think it’s going to take a lot of questions and complaints out of situations,” he said. “I think it’s important to hear what is being said and what is happening with the interaction with the police and the public.”
Like many departments, Amherst has been using cameras in its cruisers for years and Livingstone said officers have an expectation they are being recorded on the job by the public.
“The expectation in our department is they are being recorded by somebody, somewhere,” he said. “They know that, they train. It’s just kind of standard practice now.”
The Northampton Police Department examined the expense of outfitting 50 police officers and sergeants with body cameras in 2014, which would cost about $90,000 for the equipment and data storage over five years, according to Police Chief Jody Kasper.
She said the department does not have a written policy for the use of body cameras, nor has the matter been brought to the police unions to date. Nevertheless, Kasper said department staff have talked about issues of concern regarding body cameras when interacting with the public, particularly during domestic incidents and balancing privacy rights.
“We had a lot of concern about privacy and about the people we encounter, what kinds of information would we be releasing and how this footage is going to be accessible to the public,” she said.
Like other police chiefs, Kasper said she sees a lot of positives to using police body cameras, including giving the public a better perspective on the situations officers respond to and more police accountability.
She said police cruiser cameras and audio equipment officers wear have been excellent tools for prosecuting cases and noted that officers understand they are often recorded in public. She said the practical side of implementing police body cameras is the main obstacle to using them.
“We’re very proud of what we’re doing on the street, so we have no concerns about being recorded,” Kasper said. “I do think in the future, years down the line, we will see a lot of police officers wearing body cameras.”
In Hadley, Police Chief Michael A. Mason said his department has not tried body-worn cameras but has put in capital requests for them in future years.
Mason said his biggest concern is not the cost of the equipment, but the costs of storing and managing data, including responding to public records requests for police recordings.
“We certainly would be interested in implementing a program,” said Mason who has been collecting body camera policies from other departments to review.
Mason said he believes police body cameras can help quickly substantiate whether allegations of police abuse of power are founded or unfounded.
They also can help determine whether officers are following pursuit or other department policies, and are effective in evidence-gathering for a variety of cases, including drunken driving stops, for example.
“It would provide a better feeling of protection to law enforcement and the civilian population,” Mason said.
The American Civil Liberties Union published new policy recommendations on police body-mounted cameras last year, supporting their use so long as they are deployed within a framework of strong policies.
“… The challenge of on-officer cameras is the tension between their potential to invade privacy and their strong benefit in promoting police accountability,” the ACLU wrote in a paper published in March 2015. “Without such a framework, their accountability benefits would not exceed their privacy risks.”
Northampton attorney William C. Newman, director of the ACLU of western Massachusetts, said that any policy must address privacy issues that include how the images will be stored, who has access, for how long, and under what circumstances.
“Objective evidence is really important in the criminal justice system, and these cameras can provide that evidence,” Newman wrote in an email to the Gazette this week. “The studies show that body-worn cameras significantly reduce the number of civilian complaints about the police. They protect both the police and the civilians. They reduce the number of ‘he said, he said’ standoffs in court.”
Newman noted that most police departments in major cities have instituted body-worn camera programs or are committed to doing so. Boston is implementing a pilot program around May, outfitting 100 officers with body-worn cameras over six months.
Erving is one town where its police have been using body cameras since October 2015 and with positive results, Chief Christopher Blair said.
Blair said he fielded a complaint about a month ago from a resident alleging unprofessional conduct by an Erving police officer during a traffic stop. The resident was absolutely certain of the incident, Blair said, but after investigating and reviewing camera recordings, no such stop was ever made by an Erving police officer. Rather, it involved another law enforcement agency.
“There was no record of it,” Blair said. “It completely exonerated my department and my officer.”
Blair said he reviewed several body-worn camera policies, including those used in Chicago and Los Angeles, before crafting one in Erving. The policy details when and how officers should record and retention policies that vary depending on the nature of incidents.
For example, recordings of interactions with the public are kept for 30 days, while a traffic stop is kept for a year. Officers must notify members of the public they are being recorded and the police chief is the only person authorized to delete video.
“An arrest, we’re going to keep forever,” Blair said. “If it’s criminal in nature, we’re going to record it, whether they want us to or not. It’s a fine line that we’re walking because we have to protect people’s privacy as well as their rights.”
Blair said he believes there are misconceptions about police using body-worn cameras, including fears of maintaining and storing audiovisual recordings. As a small department of five officers, he said using cameras is more manageable compared to much larger agencies, but officers are able to categorize the types of incidents they are responding to with the technology they use.
Breaking down recordings into arrests, searches and motor vehicle stops, for example, has made data storage very manageable, Blair said. The department’s $900 cameras were free through the town’s insurance company and the storage is done on a department computer, with backup plans still in the works.
“It’s not like we’re storing this tremendous amount of video,” he said, adding that other departments have asked to review Erving’s policy.
Blair said all of Erving’s officers have embraced the idea of using body-worn cameras and that residents have responded positively when informed that police are recording many of their interactions with the public.
“It really does build public trust,” Blair said. “I can’t tell you how many people tell me, ‘I’m glad to hear that.’”
Dan Crowley can be reached at dcrowley@gazettenet.com.