As of this spring, the City University of New York (CUNY) began a five-year rollout of body-worn camera equipment for campus safety officers across the CUNY system. The university contracted Axon–a private company that develops weapons and surveillance technology for the military and law enforcement–at a cost of nearly $11 million for the project.

The university says the purpose of the cameras is to “[strengthen] community relations between campus officers and the University community” by “improving transparency and ensuring accountability of public safety measures.” Given the vague nature of these goals and the enormous expense this initiative incurs, it’s worth looking at the historical record of police use of body-worn cameras and the function of campus police within CUNY to assess (a) whether bodycams are actually effective at improving safety, transparency, and accountability, (b) what bodycams are used for in practice, and (c) whether the role of campus police warrants this massive expenditure.

The proliferation of bodycams in U.S. domestic law enforcement is a recent phenomenon. Beginning with a few pilot initiatives in 2012, bodycams were deployed with the explicit purpose of aiding in judicial prosecution of criminal defendants and reducing the number of civilian complaints against law enforcement. It wasn’t until the murder of Michael Brown by police officer Darren Wilson in 2014 that bodycams started being promoted as a reform for police accountability. Following this reframing, the federal government poured tens of millions of dollars into subsidizing local police departments’ acquisition of this technology. The effects were staggering: by 2016, nearly 50 percent of all law enforcement agencies in the U.S. had acquired and deployed body cameras.

Today bodycams have become something of an industry standard. But to what end? In the wake of the bodycam boom, study after study aimed to establish the impact of the technology. A 2022 meta-analysis of 30 studies of the effect of bodycams on police behavior found that they had no effect on instances of force, arrest, or stop and frisk. It also identified no effect on police officer safety. Another meta-analysis of 70 studies similarly found that body cameras had no effect on most metrics of officer behavior. 

There is also little reason to believe that bodycams will improve transparency and accountability in campus policing. As prescribed by university policy, the bodycams will only record encounters after being manually turned on by campus police. While this is arguably important for individuals’ privacy, it opens the door for intentional misuse of bodycams and unintentional neglect of them. There are many high profile examples of cops either forgetting or choosing not to turn on their bodycams during violent encounters–exactly the kinds of situations bodycams are supposed to capture. 

And even if an entire encounter is recorded on a bodycam, access to that footage is inequitable. By CUNY’s admission, campus police are not required to disclose to community members when they are being recorded, so community members have no way of knowing whether or not a recording of their interaction exists. Furthermore, while stored footage will be readily available for campus officials to review, students, faculty, and other community members will not be granted the same unfettered access. If community members want access to specific footage, they will have to submit a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request for it. While data on the FOIL process and denial rate is not available for CUNY bodycam footage specifically, such data does exist for the NYPD. A 2025 review showed that the Department consistently takes months and sometimes years to respond to FOIL requests for footage and often erroneously denies requests. 

If bodycams aren’t effective at improving police behavior, accountability, or transparency, then what are they used for? Evidence suggests that body cameras are effective at reducing the risk of institutional liability and at increasing conviction rates. Cops who wear body-worn cameras are less likely to have civilian complaints levied against them, despite the fact that their behavior doesn’t change. Instead, bodycams appear to be functioning as a deterrent, discouraging people from filing complaints that they otherwise would file. Furthermore, use of bodycams during criminal investigations increases the rate of guilty pleas, convictions, and case clearances, none of which are unequivocally positive outcomes. Though CUNY campus police are not routinely involved in criminal prosecution, they tout a close working relationship with the NYPD, often referring service calls to them. This close relationship legitimizes concerns around bodycam footage being used in criminal prosecution of campus community members. It is also possible that the CUNY administration will use their access to bodycam footage to discipline campus community members, including those who are involved in first amendment activity. 

The minimal benefits of body-worn cameras appear to be limited to institutions that regularly risk civil liability through the routine use of force and those which are evaluated by their expediency in clearing cases. According to university policy, the new bodycams are only intended for use in “certain officer-community engagements related to calls for service, vehicle stops, searches, arrests, investigatory activities, and/or confrontational/adversarial engagement.” If this sounds nothing like what you’ve seen campus police do, there’s a reason for that.

Over the 3 year period from 2021-2023, campus police at the Graduate Center reported 20 total alleged crimes to which they had to respond, the vast majority of which were then handed off to the NYPD. Over the same period, campus police for the City College of New York (CCNY)/Advanced Science Research Center–which has more than five times the number of matriculated students–reported around 175 total alleged crimes, roughly 40% of which were related to alcohol consumption. Queens College reported less than 150, Bronx Community College reported less than 40, and Baruch College reported zero. The fact is this: the vast majority of community encounters with CUNY campus police are to flash a CUNY ID for admittance into a CUNY building. This task clearly does not require bodycams, and arguably, neither do any functions of campus police. 

There is perhaps no greater indication of an institution’s priorities than what they choose to spend their money on. By pouring more than ten million dollars into ineffective and inequitable surveillance technology, the CUNY administration is signalling that their commitment lies in managing optics and avoiding liability. The University community deserves better.