Dear Editor,
Police body cameras are not a smart idea anymore; they are now a smart tool being used across police departments not only all over the country, but all over the world as well. Police body cameras do not have to drain the budgets of police departments. The money to implement police body cameras can come from places like the city, the state, and possibly the federal government.
According to an article by Time.com (Dec.2014), President Obama proposed a bill of $263 million to fund police body cameras. The bill would help fund 50,000 police body cameras. The plan is to match the state’s funding by half. If the bill is approved, police body camera’s cost will not be completely on one organization. The cost can be shared thus making it more bearable on budgets to implement the body cameras.
According to an article in the Grand Rapids Business Journal (March, 2015), the police department is expected to pay $1.4 million for the cost of police body cameras program for 5 years. The first 2 years will cost about $674,124 and $247,140 annually after those 2 first years. This will cover two hundred cameras, docking stations, two hundred licenses, training, a fixed cost for data storage and more. The fixed cost of data storage will be really helpful because one of the main costs of police body cameras are data storage. Those cameras will be on for lengthy periods of time, and the storage prices could be really high. However, with a fixed cost the amount of data does not matter and it can help police departments that are on a strict budget.
Many people are worried about the cost of police body cameras. One of the main reasons people might reject the idea of having police body cameras is because they cost too much. According to an article in the magazine Junior Scholastic (Sept. 2015), Jeff Roorda states that equipping a hundred of the country’s biggest police departments will cost over $1 billion. He is the business manager of the St. Louis Police Officers Association in Missouri. However, a price cannot be the reason to stop such a smart and safe tool from protecting the citizens and the officers. In an article by Security Magazine (Feb.2016), they discussed the findings of the Cato/YouGov national survey. They found that fifty-five percent of the people who took the survey would pay higher taxes to implement local police with body-worn cameras.
Police body cameras have become a necessary safety tool not only to protect our citizens, but our officers as well. People should not be against police body cameras based on their cost. There are many ways to pay for police body cameras. The cost does not have to drive police departments to bankruptcy. City, state, and hopefully federal aid is available. We as citizens can also help by supporting police body cameras initiatives. Are we going to continue sitting around watching in the news all the lives that are lost daily in police and citizens encounters, or are we going to take a step in the right direction and start supporting police body cameras?
Sincerely,
Michelle Francisco
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