Scotland Yard said on Monday that it will issue large-scale body-worn cameras to its officers to help them in “challenging” situations and bringing offenders to justice more quickly.
The so-called “body-worn video” will be issued to over 22,000 metropolitan police frontline officers, including overt firearms officers after their trial was found successful.
“Body-worn video (BWV) will support our officers in the many challenging situations they have to deal with, at the same time as building the public’s confidence. What we do every day will be seen by the public — that has to be good,” said Metropolitan police commissioner Bernard Ho-gan-Howe, who announced the roll-out alongside Lon-don mayor Sadiq Khan.
“Our experience of using cameras already shows that people are more likely to plead guilty when they know we have captured the incident on a camera,” Mr Howe said, adding it will speed up justice and put offenders behind bars more quickly and most importantly protect potential victims.
Video captures events in a way that can’t be represented on paper in the same detail, a picture paints a thousand words, and it has been shown the mere presence of this type of video can often defuse potentially violent situations without the need for force to be used, he said.
The cameras will be attached to the officer’s uniform and will not be permanently recording to ensure that officers’ interactions with the public are not “unnecessarily impeded”, he said, adding that the public will be told very soon that they are being recorded. “Body-worn vid-eo is a huge step forward in bringing our capital’s police force into the 21st century and encouraging trust and confidence in community policing,” Mr Khan said.
“As we roll them out across London, these cameras will make a real difference to officers, as they continue their great work on the frontline fighting crime and keeping our city safe,” he said.
