By Brittany C. Cunningham, Bryce E. Peterson, Daniel S. Lawrence, Michael D. White, James R. Coldren, Jr., Jennifer Lafferty, Keri Richardson

With funding from the National Institute of Justice (2018-75-CX-0019), CNA examined the impact BWCs provided to correctional deputies within the Loudoun County Adult Detention Center (LCADC) in Virginia. The study aimed to contribute to the body of knowledge on the implementation and impact of BWCs in jail settings and to assess the degree to which BWCs affect correctional deputy safety, serious events, resident injuries, and cost effectiveness. The LCADC implemented the Watchguard VISTA BWCs provided by Motorola Solutions. This study is supported by several other publications. First, we conducted an analysis of the changes in deputies' attitudes toward the BWC program over the course of the yearlong study period (November 2020 to October 2021) (Peterson et al., 2023). Second, we investigated the impact of BWCs on the prevalence and dynamics of RTR events, including deputy control methods and resident resistance levels (Lawrence et al., 2023a). Third, we assessed the impact BWCs had on the number of resident injuries and how RTR event characteristics affect the likelihood of an injury occurring (Lawrence et al., 2023b). The final research report of the grant provides a comprehensive summary of the project and its numerous findings (Cunningham et al., 2023) The LCADC, operated by the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office, provides jail services to Loudoun County, Virginia, which is the third most populous county in the state, with a population of nearly 421,000 in 2020 (US Census Bureau, 2023). The facility houses maximum-, medium-, and minimum-security level residents and includes work release, workforce, drug treatment, and mental health programs. Most LCADC residents are pretrial detainees, with approximately 20 percent serving sentences for misdemeanor or felony convictions. During the evaluation period, the facility had an average daily population of 222 residents of which 81 percent were male and 51 percent were white, 24 percent were Black, 21 percent were Hispanic, and 3 percent were Asian. During this time, more than 80 percent of residents had a length of stay under two weeks, while only 4 percent of residents had a length of stay over six months. The LCADC is staffed by 124 individuals, including 102 front-line deputies and 22 supervisors, the majority of whom are white and male. Staff supervise eight housing units that have one to four housing pods (20 pods in the entire facility), in addition to four general units that include the medical unit, hallways, intake unit, and transportation between the facility and outside locations (e.g., county courthouse, offsite medical facilities)

Arlington, CA: CNA , 2023. 16p.

By Tolulope Sogade

The widespread use of body-worn cameras (BWCs) by law enforcement agencies calls into question how those departments store and publicly release the large amounts of video footage they amass under public access laws. This Note identifies a changing landscape of public access law, with a close look at the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and its state analogues, as the result of the Capitol Insurrection and the national Movement for Black Lives. Namely, legislative enactments, DOJ programs, agency policy statements, and judicial opinions all indicate a movement toward more access and potentially more proactive disclosure of government records. This Note considers what a disclosure regime of BWC footage should look like in light of the new developments in freedom of information laws; it proposes an intermediary framework for release that balances proactive disclosures and agency responses to requests for disclosure. Three policy goals should serve as guideposts to achieve this intermediary framework: minimizing privacy violations and unnecessary oversurveillance, improving cost efficiency, and assessing the need for redistribution of resources from police to other more community-improving apparatuses. The congressional investigation of the Capitol Insurrection, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, and the Colorado Enhance Law Enforcement Integrity Act are exemplary, in some ways, of what disclosure should resemble. This model for approaching disclosure will be important for considering what types of information the public can access, what the public can do with that information, and how resources can be diverted or otherwise reconsidered as a part of disclosure regimes.

Columbia Law Review, 122 (6): 2022