HOW TO USE BODY-WORN CAMERA DATA
TO IMPROVE YOUR AGENCY

Topics Covered:

The value of BWC data for more than evidentiary, complaint mitigation, and public relations purposes.
How to ‘mine’ BWC data to find valuable information to improve your police department
How to set up internal processes to effectively utilize BWC data, regardless of the size of your police department

Top Takeaways:

BWC data can be used for more than just criminal or internal investigations. Agencies can also use it to assess
- Officer performance
- Operational effectiveness
- Training needs
- Policy and Procedures
- Quality of Supervision
- Management Directives
- Organizational Culture
BWC data is an essential part of Risk Management for an organization
Mining BWC data is not an easy task, and the larger the agency the more difficult it becomes.
Agencies own everything that is on every BWC video it captures, regardless of the size, and there is an unstated expectation from the public that someone inside the agency is looking at these videos to identify problems. Therefore, agencies must have some internal review process in place.
Reviewing BWC data manually is difficult, especially for larger agencies. It requires dedicated staff, a clearly identified process that is documented and defensible, and direction from leadership on what risks the reviewer should be looking for.

Questions:

Q: Would you tell the public/media that you are reviewing this data? A: Yes, it is best to be as open and transparent with the public as possible – it builds trust and confidence in the agency and can forestall issues in the future.
Q: Taking action when discovering something negative is obvious, but how would you handle positives? A: Not only can you take the opportunity to recognize good performance with the individual, but you can identify positive trends across squads or even precincts and learn what they are doing that is resulting in these positive outcomes, and then replicate it across the agency.