New Jersey To Spend $4 Million On Police Body Cameras
By David Madden
TRENTON, N.J., (CBS) -- New Jersey will set aside $4 million to make sure every state police officer is equipped with a body cam and to give cops in municipalities the same opportunity.
The policy change, announced in Trenton, also sets up parameters for their use. "You must turn on your camera at certain, specific police events, " says Elie Honig, Director of the Division of Criminal Justice within the Attorney General's office.
"If you're making an arrest. If you're doing a search. If you're making a traffic stop. If you're interviewing a witness."
Towns can opt to go further. Honig says the new policy allows for flexibility because not all towns want the cameras to run all the time, fearing they might inhibit some people from cooperating with them on the street.
A few South Jersey municipalities already have the body cameras in use, Glassboro and Evesham among them. Evesham's policy calls on officers to have their body cameras rolling from the beginning to the end of a shift.
Honig says the decision, in effect, puts state money where its mouth is. "We're spending $4 million to bring body cameras to state police. That's $1.5 million," he told KYW Newsradio, "and we're putting another $2.5 million out for local municipalities to apply for that money to help them purchase body cameras."
The state is in the process of purchasing the cameras for its force. The local portion of the initiative will be handed out as towns apply for the money.
