FY23 Body-worn Camera Policy and Implementation Program to Support Law Enforcement Agencies

The Connecticut Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, Division of State Police,
utilizes BWCs to accomplish several objectives, to include accurate documentation of critical
incidents, police-public contacts, crime and accident scenes, arrests, preserving visual and audio
information for use with investigations in accordance with applicable agency guidelines. Capturing
crimes in-progress, whether committed against the trooper and/or police officer or the community,
documenting police response to an incident, aiding in the documentation of victim, witness or suspect
statements pursuant to an on-scene response and/or documentation of the advisement of rights and to
counteract false complaints made against a trooper and/or police officer in the course and scope of his
or her official police duties and to assist in the consideration of appropriate action in response to such
an event.
In accordance with Connecticut law and State Police policy, each Trooper is currently issued and
utilizing a BWC. The Connecticut State Police began testing and evaluating BWCs in 2015, with a
deployment in 2016, achieving an approximate 70 percent implementation across the agency. While
most Troopers on patrol have a high degree of use, further education and technological improvements
are needed to achieve 100 percent compliance. This proposal is to support new BWC implementation
which includes an expansion of our current program, incorporating 200 troopers to be hired over the
course of the next three fiscal years. The new program is expected to include the requisite hardware to
meet our staffing numbers, including technological upgrades in storage and specifically redaction. The
current gap in our redaction capability dissipates efficiency in producing required or requested data
thereby eroding transparency, atrophying service, and creating backlogs. The new program focuses on
enhancing transparency, accountability, and effectiveness through improvements in technology,
storage, and swifter redaction. This bolsters our ability to provide the state’s attorney with BWC
footage for arrests and makes it easier for our troopers to manage BWC evidence.
The purpose of equipping troopers and police officers with body-worn cameras is to assist in
strengthening transparency by documenting incidents and encounters between officers and the public,
resolving officer-involved incidents and complaints by providing an objectively independent record of
events, improving community relations by allowing the public to see video evidence of police
activities and encounters in accordance with applicable laws regarding public disclosure, and
identifying and strengthening officer performance by using footage for officer training and monitoring
when appropriate and consistent with the law.