This site was designed to facilitate conducting cost-benefit analysis (CBA) on the use of body-worn cameras (BWCs) in policing. It was funded by the Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice and carried out by RTI International.
Why
There has been limited applications of CBA to policing technology. We focused on BWC adoption for three reasons: First, the rate of adoption by LEAs has been extremely fast and thorough. Large and small agencies have found BWCs to be necessary components of law enforcement. Second, BWC adoption has received substantial attention from researchers. As such, there is a reasonable body of research that we initially believed could inform both the costs and benefits sides of the equation. Finally, BWC acquisition tends to be complex. It can trigger considerable infrastructure changes, creates policy and personnel issues that must be addressed, and may alter how other work at the agency (e.g., internal investigative practices) is conducted.
Before you Begin
Information about the LEA is needed to complete this form. This includes information about agency staffing, costs, and use of force and complaint information.
- The costs associated with your agency’s BWC adoption (including the cost of implementation, maintenance, and any pilot projects that were done).
- The number of citizen complaints in the previous year.
- Hourly costs (including salary and fringe) associated with detectives, sergeants, lieutenants, and video redaction staff, if applicable.
- The number of use of force events in the previous year.
- The percentage of citizen complaints that were due to allegations of use of force.
- The percentage of use of force events that resulted in officer injury.
- The number of hours spent redacting BWC video.
Additional Considerations
Additional information is needed on the expected impact of adopting BWCs. Most users will not have this information available. We provide reference values, based on existing empirical research, that will help guide appropriate values for these parameters.
- The actual or expected reduction in complaints after implementing BWC.
- The actual or expected reduction in use of force events after implementing BWC.
- The actual or expected change in time spent investigating complaints after implementing BWC.
We do not save the data entered into this form. Results are calculated dynamically as you enter data. See our privacy policy for more information. If you want to conduct the CBA offline, download the corresponding Excel worksheet. This worksheet will also allow you to modify calculations if necessary.
Limitations
- The BWC calculator is not optimized for mobile devices. Although functional, the amount of data entry is burdensome and text may get truncated. Fields only accept numeric values but do not limit the range of possible values.
- There are major gaps in the research that prevents developing a fully specified BWC CBA calculator. Most importantly, we could find no existing research that quantifies the police-community relations benefit from adopting BWCs. Agencies that piloted this tool expressed that this benefit was a key motivation of BWC adoption.
- Research available to develop reference values are often limited to one or two studies. Users should adopt these values with caution and consider running multiple scenarios.