Body worn video (police equipment) prepared for the United States Department of Justice in 2016 is that body worn cameras "are cameras with at least one microphone and internal data storage, and allow audio/video footage to be stored and analyzed with compatible software. The cameras are typically located on the police officer's chest or head". Wearable cameras are often utilized by law enforcement to record their interactions with the public or gather video evidence at crime scenes. Current body cameras are much lighter and smaller than the first experiments with wearable cameras as early as 1998. There are several types of body cameras made by
Body worn video victims or suspects. A 2017 study from Washington, D.C. including a large number of law enforcement officers showed no effect of body cameras on documented uses of force and civilian complaints, or on a variety of additional policing activities and judicial outcomes. The authors suggest 'we should recalibrate our expectations' of body-worn cameras: "they may have great utility in specific policing scenarios, but we cannot conclude from this experiment that they can be expected to produce large, department-wide improvements in outcomes". In reviewing the existing research on police body-worn cameras in 2017, University of Virginia economist Jennifer Doleac noted that