COLUMBUS – Hundreds of law enforcement agencies in Ohio will be able to buy body-worn cameras through a $10 million grant Gov. Mike DeWine proposed in his budget.
DeWine said Wednesday that just over 180 of the state’s about 900 law enforcement agencies both have body cameras for officers and are following the standards set by a state advisory board and his goal is to make sure every law enforcement officer in the state has a body cam.
“I think it protects police, it protects the public. It’s good to have that transparency. It’s the right thing to do,” he said as he unveiled his two-year spending plan for public safety and criminal justice.
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The governor says the cost of the camera technology, storing the footage it produces and even hiring personnel to fill public records request for it is expensive for midsize and rural police departments and sheriff’s offices.
The spending blueprint being sent to lawmakers also proposes spending $1 million on law enforcement recruitment and targets violent crime, drugs and school safety.
The proposal includes $8 million to fund grants through the Violent Crime Reduction Grant Program to help local authorities develop gun crime “intelligence centers,” which would coordinate efforts by federal, state, and local law enforcement authorities to collect and analyze data on crimes involving firearms spanning multiple jurisdictions. The centers would employ technology like the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network to help identify links between shootings, DeWine said.
The grants could also be used for other violence reduction programs, such as ShotSpotter and other gunshot detection technology, and community initiatives.
DeWine calls for a doubling of the funding for Ohio’s Narcotics Intelligence Center to $13 million to increase the number of offices from two, in Cleveland and Columbus, to four with additional offices in Toledo and Cincinnati.
A total of $13 million would support RecoveryOhio Local Drug Task Force Grants, which help local authorities investigate drug cases while also promoting recovery efforts; Major Drug Interdiction Task Forces, which focus on disrupting major trans-national drug trafficking operations, and for the operation of the State of Ohio Law Enforcement Virtual Exchange (SOLVE) which helps coordinate investigations by drug task forces and law enforcement agencies.
DeWine also wants $4.6 million to support the Safer Ohio School Safety Tip Line in response to the passage of legislation that requires all schools to offer students access to an anonymous reporting system.