CHP to Equip All 7,600 Officers with Body Cams

California Highway Patrol Fell Behind Other Agencies on Body Cams. Now it’s Trying to Fix That

California Highway Patrol uniforms at the CHP Academy in Sacramento on Sept. 13, 2024. | Credit: Florence Middleton, CalMatters

The Santa Barbara Independent republishes stories from CalMatters.org on state and local issues impacting readers in Santa Barbara County.

Three years after CalMatters’ reporting revealed that only 3% of California Highway Patrol officers wore body cameras, one of the state’s largest police forces plans to equip all its officers with the technology by next year.

In 2015, now-retired Assemblymember Reginald Jones-Sawyer pitched a $10 million plan to give all CHP officers body cameras. Lawmakers landed on a one-year, $1 million pilot program. Officers recorded nearly 93,000 videos within that year, but the program was never expanded.

In 2022, CalMatters’ story noted that the pilot project had only led to 237 body cameras agency-wide, putting the CHP far behind local law enforcement agencies. At the time, the agency said it was focused on upgrading its dash cam system. Five months later, CHP sought funding for body cameras for all its officers, and state lawmakers approved the budget request.

So far about 2,400 body-worn cameras have been handed out to officers in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and the Sacramento area, according to CHP spokesperson Jaime Coffee. In total, all 7,600 officers are expected to receive their cameras by March 2026, she said.

“This is the perfect example of it moving too slow,” Jones-Sawyer said. “I always knew this needed to happen. I was just 10 years ahead of my time.”

Highway patrol officers make around 2 million stops a year, according to data from the state Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Board. Officers have also been used for work outside of state highways. They’ve been deployed during the federal government’s immigration raids in LA, used to fight crime in Oakland and police drag races, among other things.

There’s little research on whether body-worn cameras reduce police violence. However, a 2022 study found some evidence that, after three years, agencies with body cameras saw a decrease in police killings compared with agencies that did not.

Since 2023, state lawmakers have given CHP nearly $20 million for the new cameras and have planned $5 million in ongoing funding to support the new system.