The Police Department in Worcester, Mass., could serve as Exhibit A in favor of body cameras for officers.

Plagued by allegations that officers planted evidence, stole drug money and coerced sex in prostitution cases, the 450-officer department learned last November that it was facing a federal civil rights investigation like those launched in Minneapolis, Louisville, Ky., and most recently Memphis.

Elected officials in Worcester had been trying for years to put a body camera program in place, and the Police Department ran a pilot that ended in 2020. But when the city announced that the program would finally begin in earnest in February, the police unions balked, saying they wanted extra pay for wearing the recording devices.

Worcester agreed to pay each rank-and-file officer an annual stipend of $1,300, and the city’s lawyer told the City Council’s 11 members that they were “legally obligated” to approve the payments.

At the vote in May, Etel Haxhiaj, one of three councilors who opposed the stipend, said it flew in the face of the accountability people were demanding.

“I cannot imagine that when community members called for police transparency and justice, beyond body cams, that they envisioned that it would come with a reward.”

The union in Worcester was not the only police labor group looking to leverage demands for accountability. In towns and cities across the country, police unions have been asking for pay bumps for body cameras, seeking to capitalize on the growing public expectation that every encounter with the police will be recorded.

Officers in Las Vegas were among the first to win a raise that explicitly paid them to wear cameras, while unions in New York City, Seattle, Cincinnati and other cities have used body cameras as a bargaining chip in negotiations that led to significant raises. And more recently the police departments for Nassau County, N.Y., and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey agreed to $3,000 annual body camera bonuses.

“It’s literally laughable how the situation has been manipulated by the unions,” said Charles Katz, a criminologist at Arizona State University, noting that the cameras have been shown to reduce the number of misconduct complaints against officers. “Which other pieces of equipment that protect officers’ careers and lives have they charged extra for? They’re not charging extra for Kevlar vests.”

In lobbying local government officials and labor regulators, unions have argued that a pay bump compensates them for the added responsibility and loss of privacy that comes from wearing cameras. But publicly, they have said little about why officers should be paid more.

In Worcester, Officer Dan Gilbert, the union president, did not respond to attempts to reach him.

Cameras are generally activated during law enforcement operations like responding to emergency calls or conducting investigations, not during roll call or meal breaks. Some more recent models activate automatically in certain situations, such as when officers draw their guns.

  • Doxatek@mander.xyz
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    1 year ago

    Why the fuck a raise to where cameras? If it’s a new part of their uniform it should just be expected. Also they don’t like being on camera but at my old job I was on camera every second of the day and had to have equipment with me and I had no raise for specifically this.

    I also understand the cameras themselves cost money but how can these be that expensive really. And even if they were I wouldn’t care anyway, they need them imo

    • TheFogan@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      Yeah funniest thing to me was when body cams were starting out… I heard people say “Would you ever imagine being on camera during your work day?”, hell have you ever looked at the camera feeds from a gas station or grocery store, you’ll notice that the cameras have a much higher focus on watching the staff rather then focusing on getting a good view of robbers or shoplifters, Almost every job has you either on camera most of the time. If you aren’t you most likely are in a setup where the boss walks past you regularly.