Jerome Police | The police department's body cameras
Twenty-five body cameras replacing a set about fourteen years old, bought on a $25,000 grant with a city match, part of which came from a federal asset forfeiture account holding money from a drug case years earlier.
At a glance
- How many
- 25 cameras [1]
- Price
- $25,000 grant, $5,000 city match [1]
- Who approved it
- The City Council, unanimously [1]
- Where part of the money came from
- A federal asset forfeiture account [1]
- What they replace
- Cameras about fourteen years old [1]
- How long the footage is kept
- Not stated in any public record we found [1]
- A written policy
- The department operates under the Idaho Policing Policy Manual, adopted by the Council in January 2025 and revised in March 2026. The manual is not published on the city's website [2]
How it happened
- Decision
Forfeiture money toward the match
The Chief tells the Council the department's body cameras are about fourteen years old and at the end of their service life, and that a grant of $25,000 with a $5,000 city match will buy twenty-five replacements lasting three or four years each. He says $2,105.11 of equitable sharing money has been held in the Department of Justice Asset Forfeiture Program since a drug trafficking case years earlier, that body cameras are an authorized use of those funds, and that staff want to put the money toward the city's match. The Council approves unanimously. [1]
- Context
The manual that governs them
The Council adopts Resolution No. 04-26, revising the department's Idaho Policing Policy Manual, which had been adopted in January 2025. The revision adds a policy for the state's law enforcement information system audit, covering destruction of digital media and documents, and supplemental policies specific to Jerome. [2]
Body cameras are the surveillance technology most often defended as a check on the people wearing them, and the Jerome Police Department’s are ordinary in every way but one: the money.
On 18 March 2025 the Chief told the City Council the department’s cameras were about fourteen years old, had reached the end of their service life, and could not be repaired because no vendor supports them any more.[1] A grant of $25,000, with a $5,000 match from the city, would buy twenty-five replacements expected to last three or four years. The Council approved it without a dissenting vote.
The asset forfeiture account
What the Council was actually voting on was where part of the match would come from. The Chief said $2,105.11 of equitable sharing funds had been sitting in the Department of Justice Asset Forfeiture Program “due to a drug trafficking case many years ago”, and that body cameras were an authorized purchase with that money.[1]
Equitable sharing is federal money returned to a local department out of property seized in a case it helped make. It is not appropriated by the Council, it does not appear in the city’s budget as revenue the Council sets, and it sits until a department finds a use for it. This one sat for years, and the only reason the Council saw it at all is that the program requires the governing body to authorize the disbursement.
The same channel turned up in Kootenai County, where a sheriff’s office bought surveillance equipment from a forfeiture account in sentences that named no amount and no vendor. Here the amount and the purpose are both named, and the item is body cameras, which is about the least controversial thing a police department buys. What is worth noticing is the channel rather than this purchase. It is money outside the budget process, spent on equipment, and visible only when a federal form insists on it.
What is not published
The cameras are governed by the Idaho Policing Policy Manual, which the Council adopted in January 2025 and revised in March 2026.[2] The manual is not on the city’s website. How long footage is kept, who may review it, and when an officer may switch a camera off are all in a document a resident would have to ask for.
What we do not know
- Which grant program funded the $25,000? The minutes name none.
- How long is body camera footage kept, and who may review it?
- What does the department's body camera policy say? It sits inside a manual the city does not publish.
What you can do
Show up
Systems like this one are approved by boards, councils and committees that meet in public. We have confirmed where each of them meets in Jerome County and how public comment works there.
How to show up in Jerome County →Protect yourself
Practical steps to shrink your personal data trail. Our guides publish at launch; until then, EFF's Surveillance Self-Defense is the best starting point.
Surveillance Self-Defense →Sources
- 1. Jerome City Council minutes, 18 March 2025, Department of Justice equitable sharing funds distribution · Meeting record · · accessed
- 2. Jerome City Council minutes, 3 March 2026, Resolution No. 04-26 · Meeting record · · accessed
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