INDIANAPOLIS – Officials announced the start of a process to study the feasibility of a body worn camera program for Indianapolis. The process is designed to be community- and stakeholder-driven, seeking feedback from both neighborhoods and rank-and-file officers during a technology pilot period.
Over the coming months, IMPD will launch an extensive community engagement process designed to maximize resident involvement in the study. IUPUI will administer a private Web-based community survey to identify residents’ attitudes, expectations, and concerns regarding IMPD officers wearing body cameras. Community Resource District Councils, grassroots neighborhood organizations, and faith leaders will also help facilitate a series of listening sessions during the pilot period.
IMPD will publish a Request for Information from qualified vendors, seeking to identify several products to deploy for a pilot of body worn camera technology. The selected vendor products will be tested by the officers who serve in the busiest shift on the largest districts – all beat officers and supervisors on North, East, and Southeast district middle shift will use the equipment to record video and audio of resident interactions that occur over the trial period. Officers participating in the pilot will test all vendor products and provide feedback to be collected and analyzed by IUPUI to assess both vendor technology and officer perceptions of the pilot program. The technology will be piloted at no cost to the City.
This will be a second, larger pilot of body worn camera technology within the IMPD. Prohibitive costs, outdated City technology infrastructure, a small sample size, as well as a lack of community buy-in were cited when a 2014 pilot did not result in the development of a permanent program.