Essex Federation in favour of wider roll out of body cameras

ESSEX Police must update its IT infrastructure if body worn cameras are to be properly effective, the force’s Federation has said.

In some LPAs cameras are personally issued, while in some support teams they are distributed as pool equipment.

But the Federation is in favour of a wider roll out of the cameras.

Steve Taylor, Chairman Elect of Essex Police Federation, said: “They are a fantastic piece of kit. We should roll them out and, in my view, they should be made available to every officer. We do have, if you like, a cultural issue of officers being hesitant and reluctant to use them, but I think, by and large, we’re getting over that.

“For me the biggest issue locally with the body worn camera is the amount of time it takes to download the data. It is all well and good having the ability to record a situation and realising the benefits that can give you, but if you know that it’s going to take you an hour when you get back to the station to download that, such are the state of our servers and software that we use then that in itself turns people off using them, which is a crying shame.”

When technology works efficiently, body cameras can save time gathering evidence, protect officers against assault and dramatically drive down complaints against officers, studies have shown.

Complaints by members of the public against officers wearing body cameras fell by 93 per cent over 12 months compared with the year before, a study by Cambridge University found earlier this year.

Steve added: “Body cameras have a really positive impact on the way officers carry themselves, knowing that they’re being filmed. We’re moving more and more into a digital society, and we all know that any of our arrests out in public can be captured by someone on their mobile phone. To be one of the filmmakers ourselves in that process really directs and straightens out the mind, in my view, of how that officer deals with the situation.”