County Probation Officers Will Soon Be Told To Wear Body Cameras

By Stephen Gossett in News on Dec 8, 2016 6:00PM

Washington DC Metropolitan Police Officer Debra Domino wears one of the new 'body-worn cameras' that the city's officers will begin using during a press conference announcing the details of the program September 24, 2014 in Washington, DC. (Photo credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

The chief judge of Cook County Circuit wants probation officers to be outfitted with body cameras after the department was previously accused of cooperating with the FBI and Chicago Police Department in controversial searches, according to the Tribune.

Judge Timothy Evans requested the funding back in October at a county budget hearing. The hope is that such measures would protect probationers from any suspect property searches or recoveries and also provide shield for the department in any legal disputes. According to WBEZ, Commissioner John Daley said in October that body cameras for probation officers would hopefully prevent potentially expensive lawsuits.

The Tribune spoke with a probationer named Kenny Ray, who had $1500 and a GPS device illegally taken from him in 2011. He was unconvinced that bodycams would solve the issue. "I worry cameras won't change anything," Ray told the paper. "The cameras can be turned on and off. They always find a way to work around things."

Chicago police ramped up use of bodycams in the wake of the Laquan McDonald shooting after having been introduced on a smaller scale in 2015. Rougly 2,100 CPD officers are equipped with bodycams, the Tribune reports. While far from a panacea against police brutality, the practice has nevertheless been championed by the ACLU and even some police departments. But as appears to be the partial case with the probation department’s use, police who welcome the practice tend to do so out of a sense of institutional protectionism.

Bodycams for probation officers, however, is much rarer. Georgia is one of the few states that has pursued the practice so far. James Hill, of the Georgia Department of Community Supervision, told the Tib "the presence of cameras can eliminate the 'he said, she said' scenario and show what really transpired."

The most recent budget allocated $140,000 for the cameras, but no date has yet been set for a rollout.Sixty-four officers and 18 supervisors will be equipped with the bodycams to start the program, Evans' spokesperson, Pat Milhizer, told the Trib.