Fairfax County Police Body Camera Program To Begin In Phases

MOUNT VERNON, VA — The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors approved a permanent body camera program for police officers on Tuesday. The program is set to begin in May 2020 and will be implemented in phases over three years.

The approval follows a 2018 pilot program involving the Reston, Mason and Mount Vernon police district stations. These will be the first three stations implementing the permanent program. All district stations and other key operational staff will receive body cameras.

According to the implementation plan, 416 body cameras will be issued in fiscal year 2020, followed by 338 in 2021 and 456 in 2022. Positions will be added to the Fairfax County Police Department, Office of the Commonwealth's Attorney and Department of Information Technology.

Once the program is fully phased in, it will give officers 1,210 body cameras and require $6.65 million in baseline funding. One-time funding was included in the fiscal year 2020 budget, and baseline funding will come in the 2021 budget and future years as needed. The $4.3 million in funding for this year was available from the Reserve for Ad-Hoc Police Practices Review Commission.

Feedback on body cameras came from an American University research team's survey during the pilot program, which ran from March 3, 2018 to Sept. 1, 2018. The researchers surveyed 603 residents who had an interaction with an officer during the pilot program as well as two squads of officers before and after the program. Results saw overwhelming support for body cameras from residents. Opinions among officers were mixed; one squad's perception of body cameras became more negative after the program, while the other's became slightly more positive.