Body cameras were supposed to build trust between police and the people they serve. Their price is getting in the way.

In the wake of highly publicized police shootings, only occasionally recorded by bystanders but often sparking protests, police departments invested in body cameras to promote accountability. But small police departments have since been unable to maintain the cost of storing footage, and so they're ditching body camera programs quickly after they began, The Washington Post reports.

Of the 1,800 departments that "reported a fatal officer-involved shooting since 2015," nearly 1,300 of those departments had 50 or fewer officers, the Post reports via its police shooting database. That means smaller departments often need body camera accountability the most, and Justice Department grants have helped them cover $70 million in initial equipment costs.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Since the programs' implementation, though, departments have faced unexpected annual costs to keep the cameras rolling. A five-officer department in Nebraska couldn't justify spending $15,000 each year to store footage for at least 90 days, as a state law required. So it ditched the program in November, the Post says. The department of Arlington County, Virginia, rejected a pilot program right off the bat after learning it would cost $300,000 each year.

Beyond the cost of storage, there are concerns over the time it takes public defense attorneys to prepare video evidence for trial. Virginia calculates that for every 75 body cameras, it would need to hire another defense attorney, paralegal, or administrator. That rings up a charge of $6.4 million per year, the Post says. Read more about the unexpected cost of body cameras at The Washington Post.

To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Kathryn Krawczyk

Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.