Lame Duck Look Back: Feasibility of body camera mandate
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[February 05, 2021]
By RAYMON TRONCOSO
Capitol News Illinois
rtroncoso@capitolnewsillinois.com
SPRINGFIELD – An omnibus criminal justice
bill passed by the General Assembly last month would, if signed by the
governor, mandate all Illinois law enforcement agencies to use body
cameras.
The legislation, contained in House Bill 3653, would amend the state’s
2015 Law Enforcement Officer-Worn Body Camera Act from affecting “any
law enforcement” that may use body cameras to mandating “all law
enforcement agencies must” use body cameras for “all law enforcement
officers” by 2025.
Effective dates for the legislation are staggered by the size of
departments. Municipalities and counties with more than 500,000 people
must have law enforcement using body cameras by Jan. 1, 2022.
Municipalities and counties with more than 100,000 must comply by 2023,
those with more than 50,000 by 2024 and those with less than 50,000
people by 2025.
Despite the legislation mandating the use of body cameras, it does not
contain any penalties for noncompliance. A previous version of the bill
reduced the Local Government Distributive Fund —the portion of state
income tax revenue given to county and municipal governments— by 20
percent as a penalty.
That provision was stripped from the final package after it was
characterized as an attempt to defund the police and faced heavy
opposition from law enforcement groups and municipal associations.
Enough Democrats, such as state Sen. Laura Ellman of Naperville, opposed
the provision in both chambers that the bill could not attain enough
support to pass until its removal.
Now, instead of penalizing agencies that flout the mandate, the
legislation attempts to reward compliance. Law enforcement agencies that
institute body cameras by the effective date relevant to them will
receive preference for grants awarded by the Illinois Law Enforcement
Training and Standards Board, also known as ILETSB.
Unlike many of the other provisions in the criminal justice reform
legislation, body cameras have, by and large, been supported by law
enforcement. However, there are reservations about making them mandatory
for police departments when the bill offers no monetary assistance.
Last October, lawmakers in the state Senate held a subject matter
hearing on body camera usage as part of the preparation for crafting the
eventual omnibus bill. In that hearing, representatives from the
Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police testified to the prohibitive
costs of body camera installation.
The body cameras themselves are relatively inexpensive. However,
Illinois law requires all body camera footage be stored for at least 90
days, and body cameras must be on at all times an officer is on duty,
with some exceptions. The data storage involved can create a strain on
local budgets.
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Credit: Ryan Johnson, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia
Commons
The city of Elgin has just over 100,000 residents, which under the
legislation would require all law enforcement agencies operating
within the city to have body cameras by 2023. The Elgin police
department already implemented body cameras in 2015, which costs the
department $170,000 each year in data storage for its force of 182
officers, according to Elgin Police Chief Ana Lalley.
In her October testimony, Lalley told lawmakers the city would not
have been able to implement the program if it did not receive a
$500,000 federal grant.
Currently only 75 law enforcement agencies out of approximately 900
In Illinois use body cameras.
A 2019 investigation from the Washington Post found many police
departments around the country canceled or ended their body camera
programs due to the cost of storage, including the East Dundee
Police Department in the suburbs of Chicago. The small village with
fewer than 5,000 residents, which under the law would be required to
implement body cameras by 2025, did not want to pay $20,000 annually
to maintain storage for its 20 police officers’ camera footage.
With no actual penalty for noncompliance and no financial assistance
being offered by the law, it’s unclear how successful the provision
will be in encouraging the adoption of body cameras
A spokesperson for Republican state lawmakers said with the
inclusion of the unfunded mandate “it can be argued they are setting
the officers up to fail.” GOP lawmakers and law enforcement groups
have repeatedly called on Gov. JB Pritzker to veto the legislation
once it arrives on his desk.
The primary sponsors of the bill, Chicago Democrats Sen. Elgie Sims
and Rep. Justin Slaughter, have said issues of funding and budgetary
constraints for law enforcement can be addressed in follow-up
legislation in the new legislative session.
In a statement released on its website in January, ILETSB wrote, “We
anticipate (the body camera law) will increase demand for our
existing camera grant program and have asked that funding for this
program be increased.
“We trust that in the upcoming months, discussions on this topic
will be fruitful. We remain focused on the Board’s role in ensuring
that Illinois’ law enforcement community has the training and
resources to better serve the people of this State.”
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