PHOENIX — The Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation & Reentry (ADCRR) has deployed 1,300 body-worn cameras in state prisons as part of its “Reimagining Corrections” initiative to improve transparency and safety.
The body-worn cameras, introduced in May, replace outdated fixed systems that often left blind spots, Fox10Phoenix.com reported.
“We put the camera on the person and now everybody is a walking, talking system of documentation,” said Richard Michael Johnson, ADCRR’s deputy chief of emergency operations. “It’s kind of hard to refute something you can watch and listen to as opposed to taking a person’s testimony.”
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Each Axon body camera, priced at $900 each, records passively throughout an officer’s shift, but both audio and video are saved only when activated, either manually or automatically, such as when a TASER is drawn. Footage includes a two-minute pre-event buffer, the department said.
“If it’s somebody that’s in medical stress, somebody not being compliant, those are absolutely times when you should be recording,” Johnson explained. “And the reason for that two-minute retention is just because you’re not involved in an incident right now, and you didn’t start the recording, it doesn’t mean you didn’t capture an event.”
Zach Austin, Axon’s corrections director, said the partnership with ADCRR is aimed at fostering greater transparency within correctional facilities: “Providing the truth and clarity in terms of what happened in a given investigation, I think is really helping agencies get to the right answer faster.”
The cameras have already reduced inmate grievance response times by up to 12% and use-of-force reports have dropped by about 17%, according to ADCRR.
“There may be a stigma out there of what the prison environment is like,” Johnson said. “If we can be as transparent as to what the department entails, it can help with the public’s opinion of us and what we do and they can be assured that they’re safe from day to day.”
