HYPOTHETICAL VARIANCE:
in this issue:
POLICE BODY CAMS
On the surface, it sounds like a no brainer—put bodycams on every one of your police officers to ensure that when disputed situations arise, the “he said/she said” factor is completely eliminated. Is somebody claiming police brutality? Go to the videotape. It’s as simple as that. In fact, a 2014 study from the University of Cambridge validates the hopes that these cameras will help fulfill the universal mandate of enhancing public safety, while also ensuring officer safety. The study, conducted over twelve months in the California city of Rialto, found that the use of force by officers wearing cameras fell by 59% and the number of complaints fell by 87%.
Hard science, mixed with officer support and the public’s expectation of incident documentation, is leading more agencies to consider equipping their officers with body cameras.
The idea warrants even more favorable attention when you consider that many municipalities are in a position to receive a grant to pay for most or all of their initial investment in the bodycam hardware. However, on closer examination, it is clear that there are substantial costs for operating these bodycams that go well beyond the hardware acquisition costs. To ensure that these programs are successful, we urge all law enforcement agencies to calculate the fully loaded, true, up-front, and recurring costs of these cameras before bringing them into commission.
So, what does that mean when it comes to calculating the true cost of a body cam? The first thing we need to do is determine what other activities are necessary to support the ongoing operation of the cams and their costs, which in our hypothetitcal scenario, ends up being an additional $6,400 in indirect costs per camera.
Storage costs were estimated using the Duluth example from www.policeone.com
26 CAPTURE. COSTTREE 2016 Q2 ISSUE
3