Colorado Dept. Of Corrections Spends $500k On Body Cams Before Deciding No Officers Need To Wear Them
from the half-a-mil-right-down-the-toilet dept
Even though corrections officers seem to feel these devices will help them more than they will hurt them, the Colorado Department of Corrections has decided it’s not going to equip officers with body cameras. This is a pretty terrible outcome, especially since the DOC has spent a couple years and half-million dollars on build-up before unceremoniously dropping the program.
The reasons for equipping probation and corrections officers make sense. An earlier report on body cam use in youth correction programs pointed out some very positive outcomes. In response to a scathing oversight report, the head of Youth Services said as recently as last July that the state’s youth correction programs would actually benefit from the use of body cams.
Cameras inside the state’s youth detention centers capture video, but not audio, which means any investigation into the use of restraints or physical force against youth is incomplete, the ombudsman said in a fiery brief issued Tuesday.
In response, the director of the Division of Youth Services said he’s already working on it. Anders Jacobson told The Colorado Sun that he is making plans to buy tiny cameras that attach to belt loops and discreetly collect video and audio of encounters between employees and young people who are in detention.
Adding cameras to the mix would help confirm or deny claims made against corrections officers (several complaints of excessive force and racist language have been made by inmates), as well as provide coverage (and audio) in areas where cameras aren’t in place.
Even if corrections officers believe cameras are “just out to get them,” their mere presence tends to have a deterrent effect on violent acts by inmates.
In Ohio, staff at the Indian River Juvenile Correctional Facility began wearing cameras in 2022 after 12 youths barricaded themselves in a school building. Within a year, the center reported a 31% decrease in violence against staff.
If nothing else, this sort of data should have nudged the Colorado DOC towards deployment of the hundreds of cameras it already had on hand. Add to that the unexpected situations that can develop when parole and probation officers visit private homes to check on former inmates and it would seem to be a no-brainer. Everyone involved needs footage of these ultimate invasions of privacy: the warrantless search of homes under the exceptions provided by probation/parole law.
That much was made clear by a parole officer interviewed by CBS during its investigation:
“Are you post [Peace Officer Standards and Training] certified? Are you a peace officer?” CBS Colorado Investigator Karen Morfitt asked a Colorado Department of Corrections community parole officer who asked not to be identified.
“I am,” he said.
“Do you wear a body worn camera?” Morfitt asked.
“I don’t.”
“Why is that?”
“That’s a great question.”
The man says he’s not willing to show his face on television because he’s worried about possible retaliation.
“I think that the things we go into — into these homes, probably we should have cameras on,” he said.
Well, for all these reasons and LESS, the DOC has decided none of its officers should wear body cams because… state law says they don’t have to.
“I received an email from CDOC stating that we were turning in all of our cameras,” the man said.
That email from director Andre Stancil says they are pausing the “pilot program.”
[In] the same email, detailing the end of the pilot program, the DOC director explains “this legislation does not specifically mandate the use of BWC’s for the Colorado Department of Corrections, division of adult parole.”
That’s apparently all that matters: it’s not mandatory, so it’s not going to happen, even though the DOC already has hundreds of cameras sitting on shelves and corrections officers expressing their desire to have more documentation of their interactions with inmates and parolees.
So, instead of officers perhaps being given the opportunity to deter violence against them or counter complaints made against them, the status quo remains in place. But it won’t be the correctional officers who suffer most from this non-decision. It will be the people they oversee — people who are nearly completely powerless under the law and whose abuse at the hands of the state will continue in places cameras can’t see (or hear) — areas that include their own homes.
Filed Under: body cameras, colorado department of corrections, misconduct, police accountability
Comments on “Colorado Dept. Of Corrections Spends $500k On Body Cams Before Deciding No Officers Need To Wear Them”
A grain of salt…
That percentage probably includes reported violence that “justified” use of force. Like violent glances that necessitated robust self-defense.
Of course still an argument for the use of bodycams, but not necessarily one that the purportedly benefitting staff would subscribe to.
Myth vs reality
Myth: a cop with nothing to hide shouldn’t worry about body cams.
Fact: plenty of the normal things cops have to do in their job are things which look bad to the non-cop public.
Result: public access to body cams can blow back on good honest cops who are just doing the job. So cops resist body cams and especially public access.
I don’t like this conclusion, because it’s basically a workaround for the public’s ignorance and misunderstanding of what cops do and what’s OK. But in our actual reality, I think this story unfortunately holds water.
(I also don’t like the conclusion that a lot of my fellow Americans are too stupid to be trusted with the vote. But, well.)
Re:
Plenty of the things cops think is normal to do in their job are things which look bad to the non-cop public because they are bad.
Re:
If they’re good honest cops, they shouldn’t have anything to fear from being filmed doing their job. Body cams on cops will help them back up their stories if they’re being accused of wrongdoing and they didn’t do anything wrong. Any cop who doesn’t want to wear one, or any cop who turns the cam off during the job, is most likely a cop with some questionable activity to hide—which is why body cams can help hold them accountable.
Body cams are a net good. That cops keep fighting against them should tell you something—and it isn’t “the cops are afraid of being sued or arrested for justifiable behavior”.
Re: Oh my! Such as?
Fact: plenty of the normal things cops have to do in their job are things which look bad to the non-cop public.
Oh do elaborate! What things that cops have to do in their job might look poorly to the general public, that are not in fact, despicable when a peace officer does it?
(I anticipate such actions do not exist, but I’d be happy to be corrected, or hear what you imagine is normal officer conduct.)
'Video footage will clear you when you're in the right!'
I’m guessing someone pointed out that if body cams were rolled out on a widespread level then when those cameras ‘malfunctioned’ on a regular basis right before a person ended up ‘falling down some stairs’ it would
Re: Let's try that again...
I really should make it a habit to only type out the header after I finish the comment, given how easy it is to hit the enter key…
I’m guessing someone pointed out that if body cams were rolled out on a widespread level then when those cameras ‘malfunctioned’ on a regular basis right before a person ended up ‘falling down some stairs’ it would cause people to start asking even harder questions than they already are about just how optional those wearing the cameras consider the rights and lives of those they interact with.
Video footage is a great help to actually good cops and others in the field as it helps provide independent, unbiased evidence that can refute claims that the cop/guard did something they very much should not have. That so many in law enforcement seem to be extremely averse to that evidence, whether by onlookers or body-cams makes for a pretty strong case that they know full well that it would condemn the guilty far more often than it would absolve the innocent.
Laws in some states allowed people under the age of 21 to purchase alcoholic beverages, but that didn’t stop those states from following the 1st and 21st Amendment-violating National Minimum Drinking Age Act.