GROVELAND — The Groveland Police Department has been awarded $12,905.74 in state grant funds allocated by the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security’s Office of Grants and Research (OGR) Body Worn Camera (BWC) grant program.
With the use of grant funding, the Groveland Police Department will be able to provide access to a body-worn camera to every officer in the department. The grant also will fund an on-premises server for secure video storage for the department.
“This grant for Body-Worn Cameras will help strengthen our commitment to community trust,” said Chief of Police Jeffrey Gille; “Our department is dedicated to upholding the best policing policies in an effort to keep our community and our officers safe. I am grateful for this support from the Commonwealth, and would like to thank Sgt. Steven Petrone for all his efforts in obtaining this grant for the Groveland Police Department.”
The Body Worn Cameras (BWC) Grant Program will equip municipal police departments across the Commonwealth with body-worn cameras. Approximately $20 million in funding will be used to purchase 9,000 cameras during the next five years.
The Baker-Polito Administration included funding for this program as part of its Fiscal Year 2022 Capital Budget Plan. The grant application process requires each municipal department to submit a comprehensive deployment plan that describes a deliberate and phased plan to deploy the technology, as well as specific ways the proposed program will enhance the agency’s mission.
President Barack Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing placed a priority on body camera research and camera programs. The Task Force’s final report indicated that officers wearing body cameras had “87.5 percent fewer incidents of use of force and 59 percent fewer complaints than the officers not wearing the cameras.”
According to a recent poll by the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association, only 10 percent of Massachusetts municipal departments operate a body-worn camera program. However, the same poll indicated that 75 percent of departments in major cities and smaller communities are interested in starting a program.
