Phillip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
By Philip Sean Curran
Princeton officials have postponed a decision until next year at the earliest, on whether municipal police officers should wear body cameras, even though the police department has supported using the equipment.
Instead, the officials said this week that they would watch the experience of other towns that are using the technology before deciding if Princeton should join the list of municipalities that have taken that step.
“I think there’s some cases where we want to be out on the forefront and be a leader,” Mayor Liz Lempert said Monday after the council meeting. “And there’s other cases where I think it’s helpful to let other towns take the first step and work out some of the bigger issues and make the mistakes and fix them and then we can come in.”
Requiring police to wear cameras gained traction nationally amid high-profile encounters, in recent years, between police and members of the public. On one hand, the technology is viewed as increasing police accountability by having a video record. Yet it also has raised questions of privacy, particularly when cameras film crime victims.
“Police agencies must determine what adopting body-worn cameras will mean in terms of police-community relationships, privacy, trust and legitimacy and internal procedural justice for officers,” read a federally funded report issued in 2014 by the Police Executive Research Forum, a research organization. “Police agencies should adopt an incremental approach to implementing a body-worn camera program.”
In its strategic plan for 2015-18, the Princeton Police Department listed among its objectives implementing body cameras for police “patrol activities.”
In 2015, the Christie administration provided grants to police departments in the state to buy the equipment, with Princeton getting $15,000. That would not cover all the town’s costs, however. The municipality has estimated it would take $200,000 to $250,000 to buy the cameras and other related equipment.
“But often with technology, the first round is much more expensive and then the price drops. And so we’re hoping to take advantage of all those things,” Lempert said.
Yet in terms of when officials would decide whether to use body-worn cameras or not, she said that is something they would talk about among themselves annually.
“I think every year we’re going to talk about [if this] should this be a priority for this year,” the mayor said.
“I think transparency is important, accountability is important,” she said. “We want to make sure that our police department have the tools that they need to be the kind of department that they want to be and that we hope they are.”
She added that a lot of police activity is “already on film.” Police have dash cam videos in their cars.
“There’s already a lot of footage. I think what’s the complicated piece is when you think about when an officer is not in their car,” Lempert said.
She said the town wants to think through scenarios in which a police officer is dealing with a member of the public who might want to remain anonymous. She felt it important to avoid creating a “chilling effect,” in her words, and said officials want “police out in the community, we want people feeling safe coming forward.”
“Those are the policy issues that I would say are still being worked out, we’re still learning about,” Councilwoman and Police Commissioner Heather H. Howard said, also after Monday’s meeting. “Sometimes by not being first, you benefit.”
Town administrator Marc D. Dashield said after the meeting that there are “policy” and “technology” issues that the town wanted to monitor in other municipalities “before we jump into it right away.”
“So I think it’s just a matter of timing,” he said.
Police Chief Nicholas K. Sutter could not be reached for comment.
