Falls Township Police officers began wearing body worn cameras this past Monday in an effort to promote accountability and transparency a post to the departments Facebook post says.

The Falls Township Board of Supervisors approved a $166,620 five-year deal with WatchGuard Video for the system, last year which ensures that the more than 50 officers will wear cameras while on duty.

Body worn cameras discourage officers and community members from engaging in inappropriate conduct. These devices also discourage both law enforcement and civilian witnesses from providing false information, according to the department.

“A body worn camera recording not only can exonerate an officer who is falsely accused of misconduct, but also discourage a person from making false allegations against the officer in the first place” the post reads.

Body worn cameras are a valuable asset intended to assist police in solving crimes and successfully prosecuting offenders by augmenting an officer’s testimony with a video/audio record of the incident. Body worn camera recordings preserve accurate visual depictions of physical evidence and also document how physical evidence was found, said Falls Police officials.

“Body worn cameras also record the physical appearance of suspects and crime victims, preserving evidence of any apparent injuries. The audio portion will document witness and suspect statements, preserving not only the substantive content of those statements, but also showing whether officers had complied with Miranda and other legal requirements.

Additionally, this equipment will enable department administrators to conduct periodic reviews of officer-citizen contacts for quality control purposes, aid in the investigation of citizen complaints and aid in the training of department personnel

The department employs dash cam/ in vehicle cameras currently.