By Illinois Radio Network
SPRINGFIELD – More and more police departments in Illinois are walking away from their body cameras, not because they don’t like the idea, but because the state’s police chiefs’ group says the cameras cost too much.
Police body cameras cost just a couple of hundreds dollars a piece. But the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police’s Ed Wojcicki said the other costs, namely storing the video and editing it down, are becoming unaffordable.
“The things that seem to be most burdensome seem to be the cost of storage, and the manpower involved,” Wojcicki said. “Working with the video, redacting the video, and so forth.”
Illinois’ body camera law requires officers to turn on the cameras for all law enforcement activity, then departments have to store that video for 90 days.
“I think some [departments] think that they can manage the storage with local servers,” Wojcicki said. “But they pretty much find out that they can’t do that. And they also understand that [the video] will cost them additional manpower to manage it.”
Wojcicki said the Illinois chiefs support body cameras but are reluctant to tell local departments to jump in because of the costs.
State Sen. Tim Bivins, R-Dixon, said it’s difficult to swallow those costs, in part because the motivation for the law was not just about transparency in law enforcement.
“Cost remains a major obstacle for the smaller departments,” Bivins said. “The other obstacle can be well meaning or politically motivated legislators enacting laws that requires long term storage of video by law enforcement agencies.”
Wojcicki said he hopes to tweak the law. He said the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police are already having conversations with lawmakers and local leaders.
“This fall, the Illinois chiefs are talking with the Illinois Municipal League about how we could possible get the law modified,” Wojcicki said. “We want to make it less burdensome and less expensive for cities and police departments.”
Wojcicki said the talks are “preliminary” at this point.
