Also, much of the military-type gear you see police using looks that way because it came from the military. Law enforcement agencies can acquire surplus military gear like rifles, aircraft, vehicles, and helmets at no cost. If you see a law enforcement agency flying a "Huey" (UH-1) helicopter, it's a pretty sure bet it used to be painted olive drab.
[Edit, 12/1/14: after being advised the image I chose was of a different model helicopter, I found one of a police-purposed Huey]
There are supposed to be rigid controls on the use and disposition of this equipment, and there have been some abuses. One agency I read about acquired 50 or so M-16 rifles, and a couple of years later they didn't know where they were. The most common explanation is that they were sold, with the money going into some police executive's pocket. It's rare to see prosecutions for this sort of thing, as the government has to have evidence of the sale, not just the mysterious disappearance. More commonly, the only penalty is that the agency that acquired the surplus property is just no longer allowed to participate in the program.
A body cam program involves more than just the purchase of the hardware. You also need a system to archive, index, and retrieve the many hours of video the cameras will produce. This can be a lot of video.
For example, say we're talking about a department the size of Ferguson, MO, which I've read has 52 sworn officers. To make the math easy, I'll use 50 sworn. On any given day, about 60% of your cops are at work, the rest being on regular days off, vacation, sick, training, etc. If the cops are on eight-hour shifts, it's likely the cameras will run about half the work day. That's four hours x 30 cops, or 120 hours of video every day. Another 120 hours tomorrow, the next day, and so on. If the video is H.264 NTSC at 30 fps, that's 13.45 GB per hour, or 1614 GB or 1.58 TB per day (I used the Video Space Calculator). There is considerable variance depending on the frame rates, resolution, and so on, but no matter how you slice it, that's a lot of video storage.
You need to decide how long you're going to keep that video around before you delete it. "Forever" might be a good plan, but that's going to get spendy real fast. Using the Amazon Web Services Simple Monthly Calculator, I get a monthly cost of about $4700 for video storage, and that's if you delete all your video after 30 days. Most places are going to keep it longer than that.
You also have to have software to track the video. That can be a one-time purchase, but it adds to the bottom line.
I think body cams are a great idea, and most cops support their use. But thinking that it's just the price of the camera hardware is naive.
Update, 8/22/14: http://ift.tt/2eqyIOn
Read other answers by Tim Dees on Quora:
- What do police officers think of what this ex-Baltimore police officer has to say about violence against citizens?
- What do police officers think about requiring all officers to undergo drug and alcohol screening?
- Does the NYPD, and police departments in general, take officer-involved shootings and deaths more seriously than is portrayed by social media and the general public?
from Quora http://ift.tt/2eqtOBc
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