“I, as a general matter, believe that we should invest in the ability of law enforcement leaders in specific regions and with their departments to use… discretion to figure out what technology they are going to adopt based on needs that they have and resources that they have. So, I don’t think we can have a one-size-fits-all approach to this.”

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Police body cameras (also called body-worn cameras) are small cameras worn on a law enforcement officer’s chest or head to record interactions between the officer and the public. The cameras have a microphone to capture sound and internal data storage to save video footage for later review. According to the Bureau of Justice Assistance, “[t]he video and audio recordings from BWCs [body-worn cameras] can be used by law enforcement to demonstrate transparency to their communities; to document statements, observations, behaviors, and other evidence; and to deter unprofessional, illegal, and inappropriate behaviors by both law enforcement and the public.” For more on police body cameras, explore the ProCon debate.

ProCon.org is the institutional or organization author for all ProCon.org pages. Proper citation depends on your preferred or required style manual. Below are the proper citations for this page according to four style manuals (in alphabetical order): the Modern Language Association Style Manual (MLA), the Chicago Manual of Style (Chicago), the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA), and Kate Turabian's A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (Turabian). Here are the proper bibliographic citations for this page according to four style manuals (in alphabetical order):

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“Some of these [police] departments have plenty of money, and some of them don’t. And if they like the idea of the cameras, they need federal funding. It can solve a lot of problems for police. It can also solve a lot of problems – period…. [But] different police departments feel different ways.”

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“Police militarization is an endless, deadly arms race that endangers people of color & the poor, & impoverishes our communities. Tweaks around the margins (body cams, bias training, duty to report etc.) haven’t worked. This needs a total system change.”

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Bryan Anderson, “Debate Fact Check: Kamala Harris’s Body Camera Comments Didn’t Tell Full Story of Her Record,” sacbee.com, June 28, 2019 Christopher Cadelago, “Kamala Harris Disagrees with Statewide Police Body-Camera Regulations,” sacbee.com, May 27, 2015

Editors’ Note: Oliver retweeted a post from Our Tallahassee: “Body camera video shows Tallahassee Police Department Officer planting evidence in a DUI arrest.”

“I was very proud to put in place a requirement that all my special agents would wear body cameras and keep those cameras on.”