HOME ABOUT OUR WORK Topic icon Criminal Courts Topic icon Credit and Finance Topic icon Housing Topic icon Labor and Employment Topic icon Policing Topic icon Public Benefits Topic icon Across the Field See all of our work OUR TEAM JOIN US
October 12, 2017
Policing

Body cameras are only as effective as the policies that govern them

Miranda Bogen and Harlan Yu

Article

After St. Louis chose to accept a year of free body-worn cameras from Axon, we argued in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the city’s police department needed to significantly strengthen civil rights protections in its BWC policies — particularly around when officers can review footage.

Download
Upturn Authors
Harlan Yu

Related Work

DC Council Testimony on the Police Budget and Surveillance Technologies

Consistent with the calls to defund the police by Black-led DC-based organizers, we testified that the District needs a new approach to public safety, including a significant reduction in taxpayer spending on police surveillance technologies.

Policing
Police Body Worn Cameras: A Policy Scorecard (2017)

Together with the Leadership Conference, Upturn releases the latest version of our scorecard that evaluates the police body-worn camera policies in 75 major U.S. cities. It continues to show a nationwide failure to protect the civil rights and privacy of surveilled communities.

Policing
Philadelphia City Council Testimony on the Ongoing Implementation of Body-Worn Cameras

Harlan testifies at a hearing held by the Philadelphia City Council Committee on Public Safety on the Philadelphia Police Department’s current body-worn camera policy, which is not meeting national best practices.

Policing