Monmouth Police Chief Joe Switzer informed Monmouth City Council that the Illinois State Legislature voted on and passed a Criminal Justice Reform Omnibus Bill, including the implication of using body cameras. Communications Director Ken Helms has more:
“We currently have in-car squad cameras that record everything. Then we also have in-building storage for the interviews and things like that so we have quite a bit of video infrastructure that is already out there, however, because body cameras are a whole separate beast when it comes to your retention requirements, that presents a huge issue. What most places have went with when going to body cameras is they do a per officer pricing. That enables them to basically make sure that they never run out of storage space, that the infrastructure is taken care of, and things like that. It is a substantial cost. We have looked at it for a number of years. Right now they are estimating anywhere between $7,000 and $8,000 per officer.”
