A body-worn camera is a recording device worn by police officers as part of their uniform for documenting what they see while performing their duties. Body cameras continue to be a key focus for state policymakers as they consider and implement laws for dealing with police-community relations and police behavior, such as police brutality and force ( Maury, 2016) . The law on police body cameras requires them to wear the cameras in a manner and location that maximizes the ability of the camera to record video footage of the activities of the officers.
The problem that police body cameras sought to address was the police-community relations and police behavior. Reports indicate that more than a third of the 18,000 or so law enforcement agencies in the US are using body cameras. In 2016, 47% of general-purpose law enforcement agencies in the US had adopted body cameras ( Lum, Stoltz, Koper & Scherer, 2019) . The cameras were introduced after increased criticism from community following multiple controversial police use of force cases. The cameras were considered a solution to the issues of community trust and a means of increasing police accountability.
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The rapid adoption of body cameras in the US has been driven by highly exposed events in this decade which often involves white police officers often killing unarmed Black people. Some of the notable incidences which triggered the need for policy body cameras were the shooting of Michael Brown in 2014, by a white police officer in Ferguson, and the killing of Freddie Gray in Baltimore City Police Department custody in 2015 ( Lum, Stoltz, Koper & Scherer, 2019) .
Accordingly, the implementation of body cameras was aimed to document the encounters of patrol police officers and their encounters with the community and reveal the truth about how these patrol police officers perform their operations such as arrests, service of warrants, officer-involved shootings, and handling emotionally disturbed individuals, car stops, and street encounters resulting in frisks ( Fan (2016) . In such cases, the recordings from body cameras offer critical evidence that officers are behaving properly under the law as well as within the judicious scope the policies of the police agency.
In conclusion, while law enforcement has, without doubt, come to appreciate the advantages of using such technology, the greater surveillance has contributed to increased privacy concerns. However, in the real world, the benefits of the cameras – increased accountability and transparency – between the community and police overshadow the concerns of privacy ( Fan, 2016) . This is particularly true if appropriate actions are taken regarding the privacy of the general public, such as revealing that a body camera is worn and being used.
References
Fan, M. D. (2016). Privacy, public disclosure, police body cameras: Policy splits. Ala. L. Rev. , 68 , 395.
Maury, K. J. (2016). Police body-worn camera policy: balancing the tension between privacy and public access in state laws. Notre Dame L. Rev. , 92 , 479.
Lum, C., Stoltz, M., Koper, C. S., & Scherer, J. A. (2019). Research on body ‐ worn cameras: What we know, what we need to know. Criminology & public policy , 18 (1), 93-118.
