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Hazelwood Police Receive Federal Grant To Defray Cost for Body Camera Program
The Hazelwood Police Department (HPD) has received a grant from the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) to help defray the costs of implementing a body-worn camera system for the officers. Last year, the department applied for a federal matching funds grant to the BJA as part of the federal Body-Worn Camera – Policy and Implementation Program. Law enforcement agencies across the country and worldwide are using body-worn cameras (BWC) as a promising tool to improve law enforcement interactions with the public. BWC’s can provide a visual and audio record of interactions. Some preliminary evidence indicates that the presence of BWCs helps strengthen accountability, transparency, and can assist in de-escalating conflicts, resulting in more constructive encounters between the police and members of the community.
The HPD completed the application in February 2016, requesting over $56,000. This federal grant is considered a matching grant; therefore, the City of Hazelwood would be responsible for providing a matching amount of money totalling $112,000. In October 2016, the HPD received notice that they had been awarded the grant and could begin the initial steps in the Policy and Implementation Program.
This program has very specific guidelines and structure that the Police Department must follow. The intent of the program is to help agencies develop, implement, and evaluate a BWC program as one tool in a law enforcement agency’s comprehensive problem-solving approach to enhance officer interactions with the public and build community test. The department will work with partners at the federal level as well as professionals in education, policy development, training and technical services to develop, incorporate, and provide sustaining evidence-based BWC practices.
Program funds are expected to support necessary collaboration with other justice stakeholders, such as citizen and community groups, prosecution, labor organizations (e.g., police unions), and the courts, to help ensure that an effective program is implemented. Once policy has been instituted, focus will then be placed on review, assessment of equipment, training and implementation of the actual BWC system.
Law enforcement agencies’ use of BWC programs has been shown to be a promising practice to improve law enforcement’s interactions with the public. BWC programs are an important tool that could be an integrated part of a jurisdiction’s holistic problem-solving and community-engagement strategy, helping to increase both trust and communication between the police and the communities they service. BWCs can be highly effective, providing an objective audio and visual record of interactions that can capture empirical evidence in the event of a crime, police-citizen interaction, or use-of-force incident.
Preliminary research indicates that departments that have effectively implemented BWC programs have received fewer public complaints, file fewer use-of-force reports, and show a reduction in adjudicated complaints resulting in a decrease of settlements. The HPD will seek community input in regard to police development in the form of an Open House-style meeting, in the future. The department will inform the community through the City’s/Police websites and social media outlets.
The grant period operates through September 2018. The HPD expects that BWCs will be used in the field by the early months of 2018 or sooner. (story provided by the City of Hazelwood)
