Law-enforcement agencies, local; body-worn camera systems. (HB402)
Introduced By
Del. Mark Levine (D-Alexandria)
Progress
✓ |
Introduced |
✗ |
Passed Committee |
☐ |
Passed House |
☐ |
Passed Senate |
☐ |
Signed by Governor |
☐ |
Became Law |
Description
Local law-enforcement agencies; body-worn camera systems. Requires localities to adopt and establish a written policy for the operation of a body-worn camera system, as defined in the bill, that conforms to the model policy established by the Department of Criminal Justice Services (the Department) prior to purchasing or deploying a body-worn camera system. The bill requires the Department to establish a model policy for the operation of body-worn camera systems and the storage and maintenance of body-worn camera system records. Read the Bill »
Outcome
Bill Has Failed
History
| Date | Action |
|---|---|
| 01/05/2018 | Committee |
| 01/05/2018 | Prefiled and ordered printed; offered 01/10/18 18101024D |
| 01/05/2018 | Referred to Committee on Militia, Police and Public Safety |
| 01/15/2018 | Assigned MPPS sub: Subcommittee #2 |
| 01/24/2018 | Impact statement from DPB (HB402) |
| 02/01/2018 | Subcommittee recommends passing by indefinitely (5-Y 0-N) |
| 02/13/2018 | Left in Militia, Police and Public Safety |
Comments
As we did last year, the ACLU of Virginia will oppose any bill, including HB402, that simply directs law enforcement to implement body cams policies consistent with an unspecified DCJS model policy. We have very serious concerns with the current DCJS model policy as documented in our report on body cams available for download here, https://acluva.org/en/publications/getting-win-win-use-body-worn-cameras-virginia-policing. The current DCJS model policy was developed and published without any input from public stakeholders. We were only allowed to review a draft after publication and NO changes were made in the draft following our review and submission of comments. Neither was the model policy approved by the Governor’s law enforcement technology task force before it was published.
We would support legislation like this offered by Delegate Carr in 2015, http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?151+ful+HB2280, that guarantees appropriate stakeholder involvement in the development of any model policy and specifies certain provisions that must be in all policies, assuring that a person in Fairfax will not experience the use of body cams differently than a person in another jurisdiction when it comes to some basic issues like access to video of oneself, the right to know you are being filmed, etc.