Police body cameras will not be mandatory on January 1, 2016, but Public Act 99-0352 creates a policy for their use throughout the state of Illinois. Public Act 99-0352 is the nation’s most comprehensive piece of legislation related to police body cameras.
Both law enforcement and the public seem to welcome the use of police body cameras. Based on evidence collected in the Rialto Study, the findings suggest that BWCs significantly reduce the prevalence of use-of-force by the police as well as citizens’ complaints against the police. Read the Rialto Study.
In terms of the comprehensiveness of Public Act 99-0352, Mathew Hector explained in the Illinois Bar Journal (December 2015) Illinois Bar Journal (December 2015) that the bill: “takes several steps to improve police-citizen relationships by providing a uniform model for the use of police body cameras, expanding police officer training beyond the academy, banning chokeholds, clarifying that citizens may film police officers, and creating a database of officers who have been dismissed for misconduct or while under investigation.” Illinois Bar Journal (December 2015)