(The Heart Sq.) – New Hampshire is offering cash to native police departments to equip officers and patrol vehicles with physique cameras, as a part of a broader effort to enhance accountability in legislation enforcement.
The New Hampshire Government Council final week accredited a request from the state Division of Security to spend about $720,000 to supply grants to almost 30 police companies searching for to make use of the brand new expertise.
In a memo to the council, Public Security Commissioner Robert Quinn stated the grants can be utilized for the “buy, upkeep, and substitute of body-worn and dashboard cameras and ongoing prices associated to the upkeep and storage of knowledge.”
Quinn stated the grants will probably be capped at $50,000 for every police division and can be utilized to cowl as much as 50% of the prices for the digicam programs.
A number of communities – together with Derry, Keene, Rochester and Salem – will probably be getting the complete $50,000 whereas different cities and cities will obtain smaller grants, in keeping with the division’s funding request.
Final yr, the state accredited a five-year, $3.4 million contract with Georgia-based Utility Associates, Inc. to supply no less than 320 body-worn cameras and about 260 cameras on state police cruisers, in addition to a wi-fi community to assist the programs.
A number of of New Hampshire’s largest cities, together with Manchester, already require physique cameras for cops.
Police physique cameras have been amongst dozens of suggestions by the state Fee on Legislation Enforcement Accountability, Neighborhood, and Transparency, or LEACT, which launched a report final yr calling for police reforms to curb police misconduct.
The panel’s suggestions got here in response to the homicide of George Floyd by Minneapolis cops throughout a routine cease final yr.
Final yr, Gov. Chris Sununu signed an order calling for implementation of plenty of the suggestions together with the cameras and coaching for cops on bias, racial profiling and de-escalation techniques.
The order additionally requires bettering information on police misconduct and creates a brand new unit throughout the state Division of Justice to analyze and prosecute allegations of prison conduct by authorities officers.
Advocates say the policing reforms are desperately wanted to remove bias amongst legislation enforcement officers in New Hampshire.
Sununu stated police physique cameras will enhance transparency and accountability in legislation enforcement.
“Physique cams actually present transparency in our course of and safety by way of what occurred, the hows and whens and who was concerned and all of that,” he advised reporters at a Wednesday briefing. “And the extra data the higher.”