Pa. state system schools look to outfit police with body cameras – By Bill Schackner (Triblive) / Jan 7, 2023
Slippery Rock University is seeking grants to begin outfitting its 11 police officers and five patrol cars with body and vehicle cameras that can record interactions with students, employees and the general public.
The school with 8,200 students isn’t the only state-owned university poised to take that step.
Campuses across the System of Higher Education can now legally equip their police personnel with cameras and leave those devices in continuous use under a new state law, Act 121, that modifies the process by which those officers are certified.
The law now makes it permissible under Pennsylvania wiretap law for those officers to record audio in the course of their duties not only while in public but when entering private spaces such as dorms. It’s a practice present elsewhere in law enforcement, but one that until now could not be utilized by the State System, officials said.
