Training Curriculum Enhancements Using Body Worn Camera Footage

Constitutional Policing is crucial for maintaining a police department's “legitimacy” and serves as the cornerstone for police practices that involve “procedural justice.” Increasingly, police departments recognize that maintaining legitimacy and procedural justice are essential goals and necessary considerations for operational success. The concepts of constitutional policing and procedural justice will be intertwined in the deliverables developed through this grant proposal.

The Port Authority Police Department (PAPD) is applying under Category 5: Using Body Worn Camera (BWC) Footage for Training and Constitutional Policing Demonstration Projects. The Port Authority Police Department (PAPD), with over 2,000 members, is responsible for securing the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) assets.  Among its facilities are the three major airports in the New York Metropolitan area, the World Trade Center, and the major bridges and tunnels connecting New York and New Jersey.

    PAPD received FY2022 funding under the Bureau of Justice Assistance BWC Policy and Implementation Program to Support Law Enforcement Agencies grant (Category 1) to purchase and deploy 2,000 body-worn cameras to its members.  This program has been operating for one year, and BWC footage has been integrated into PAPD curriculums to a limited degree.  The difficulty with adding this footage is the fact that since program inception, 70,125 hours of video footage have been captured within 300,000 recordings, and reviewing this footage is unwieldy and time-consuming.  Through this request for grant funding, PAPD seeks to use its BWC video feed to improve the curriculums of twenty-one PAPD Police Academy courses.  The initial seven that will be revised to include BWC camera footage are: Use of Force, De-Escalation-Mental Health Interventions, Basic Supervisory Training, Active Shooter, Vehicle Pursuits/Traffic Stops, Medical Responses, and Searches and Arrests. The remaining fourteen courses will be updated during the second and third years of the grant performance period. The PAPD Police Academy will lead a thorough process to find appropriate video footage, modify lesson plans, and ensure ongoing feedback as the new courses are developed. Various levels of PAPD leadership will be involved in this process to ensure efficiency, effectiveness, and task completion.