Five new grants were received from the U.S. Department of Justice that will help hire new officers as well as purchase body cameras in Phoenix.
Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton along with Phoenix Chief of Police Joseph Yahner and other city officials discussed the money the city received in the form of five grants on Tuesday.
- Of the money, $3.1 million will be used to employ 25 new police officers.
- Body cameras to be worn by officers will also be purchased in the amount of $637,000.
- $392,000 will be used to combat internet crimes against children.
- Backlogged DNA cases will be processed with the help of $451,000.
- $253,000 will be used to combat counterfeit trademark enforcement.
An evaluation was conducted from April 2013 to March 2014 on body camera usage with Phoenix Police officers in the Maryvale precinct in an Arizona State University study that specifically looked at the usage of these body camera videos in regards to complaints and violence cases.
In the period of evaluation, body cameras were activated for fewer than seven percent of the total number of traffic incidents, while officers activated their body cameras for almost 50% of domestic violence cases.
Scroll over the chart below to view how often officers activated their body cameras in different incidents.
Almost half of the total body camera footage logged was either a property offense or a violent offense.
Take a look at the chart below to see the breakdown of body camera footage by incident type.
