When East Dundee, Il., a Chicago suburb, ordered body cameras for its 17 police officers, Police Chief Terry Mee said the devices would promote “officer safety” and “positive interaction with the public.” Before any incidents could be recorded in the village of 3,000, Mee retired, and new Chief George Carpenter persuaded the village to cancel the program, arguing that the $20,000 annual fee for the cameras and video storage couldn’t be justified, the Washington Post reports. Body cameras “are wonderful for winning public trust,” he said. “But it’s expensive.” After a spate of fatal police-involved shootings prompted nationwide protests, politicians and activists seized on body cameras as a way to restore public trust. Although the cameras were widely adopted, many departments — especially smaller ones — are dropping or delaying their programs, finding it too expensive to store and manage the thousands of hours of footage.
Police in Wahoo, Ne., ended its camera program in November after a new state law required video to be stored for at least 90 days, causing the annual price to spike to $15,000. Arlington County, Va., police decided not to use body cameras, facing an annual cost of $300,000. “The easy part is buying the body cameras and issuing them to the officers,” said Jim Pasco of the National Fraternal Order of Police. “But storing all the data that they collect — that cost is extraordinary. The smaller the department, the tougher it tends to be for them.” Though urban areas with high crime rates are viewed as having the greatest need for police body cameras, a Washington Post database found that of the 1,800 departments that have reported a fatal officer-involved shooting since 2015, nearly 1,300 had 50 or fewer officers. About half of the nation’s 18,000 law enforcement agencies have some type of body-camera program, with many in the pilot stage.