Civil and Human Rights Coalition Applauds Philadelphia City Council’s Review of Body Worn Cameras

WASHINGTON – Wade Henderson, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, released the following statement in advance of today’s Philadelphia City Council Committee on Public Safety’s Public Hearing on police body worn cameras. The Committee will be considering Resolution 16113, which authorizes the Committee to determine whether the Philadelphia Police Department’s policy for body-worn cameras “promotes transparent and accountable policing practices, and whether the program is fair and equitable to both police officers and the residents of Philadelphia.” As noted in the Resolution, in 2016, The Leadership Conference and Upturn released a scorecard that evaluates the civil rights safeguards of police body-worn programs in 50 U.S. cities, including Philadelphia.

“Last year, in releasing our Body Worn Cameras Scorecard, we underscored the need for policy and program guidance to provide actual accountability, protect civil rights, and begin to build a relationship of collaboration and trust between police and the communities they serve.

This hearing is part of a crucial national conversation about policing in our country. We applaud Chairman Jones and Vice Chair Johnson for their leadership in this area. We are pleased to see the Committee’s focus on the importance of community input when police departments develop and implement policies on body-worn cameras, which will help ensure that police-operated cameras enhance, rather than threaten, civil rights. While body cameras carry the promise of officer accountability, accountability is far from automatic.

As our scorecard notes, the Philadelphia Police Department needs to make substantial improvements to its policy in order to reap the full benefit of these new technologies. We urge PPD to consider our scorecard as it further develops and implements body-worn camera policies and programs. Without the appropriate safeguards, we are at risk of compounding the very problems in policing we are seeking to fix.”

The Leadership Conference’s comments for the record are available here.

Wade Henderson is president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 200 national organizations to promote and protect the rights of all persons in the United States. The Leadership Conference works toward an America as good as its ideals. For more information on The Leadership Conference and its 200-plus member organizations, visit www.civilrights.org.