The bergen county prosecutor's office (bcpo) proposes an expansion to its existing body-worn camera (BWC) efforts in bergen county, new jersey, through the creation of a digital evidence repository

The Bergen County Prosecutor's Office (BCPO) in Hackensack, New Jersey was awarded a $1,000,000 Project Grant from the Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Assistance under the Body Worn Camera Policy and Implementation program (CFDA 16.835). The funding will support the BCPO's creation of a digital evidence repository to streamline evidence sharing between county and municipal law enforcement agencies in Bergen County. Currently these agencies store digital evidence through various disparate methods, creating inefficiencies in interagency evidence exchange. The repository will also enable a new public request system allowing expedited access to redacted body-worn camera footage within three weeks, improving on current processes requiring up to three weeks for agencies to burn footage to CDs. By unifying digital evidence storage and simplifying public records requests, this Project Grant aims to dramatically enhance evidence movement between law enforcement partners and transparency with the public in Bergen County, New Jersey.

This repository would unify the storage of digital evidence by county and municipal law enforcement agencies, which currently store their digital evidence through a variety of different methods. This system has grown unwieldy, creating great need for the streamlining of interagency evidence exchange. In addition to meeting this need, the proposed repository would be utilized by a planned system through which members of the public would be able to request access to redacted BWC footage. The current process to request BWC footage from agencies within bergen county can take up to three weeks, as agencies need to burn BWC footage onto CDS. The simplification of this process will improve its efficiency, as well as relations between local law enforcement and the public. Funding from the US DOJ BJA body-worn camera policy and implementation program to support law enforcement agencies grant program would enable the bcpo to complete these proposed projects, which will dramatically improve the movement of digital evidence both between agencies and to the public when appropriate.