Only 3% of California Highway Patrol had body cams in 2022—Now 7,600 officers are getting them

Sacramento, California – Nearly a decade after lawmakers first proposed equipping California Highway Patrol officers with body-worn cameras, the state’s most significant police force is finally moving forward. The California government expects all 7,600 CHP officers to be outfitted with cameras by March 2026—an important step for an agency that until recently had fewer than 250 in use across the state.

The rollout follows years of delay and a growing demand for greater transparency in policing. In 2015, Assemblymember Reginald Jones-Sawyer proposed a $10 million plan to equip every CHP officer with a body camera. What he got instead was a $1 million, one-year pilot program. That effort produced nearly 93,000 recorded videos, but no one made any long-term commitments.

It took until 2022—and public reporting that just 3% of CHP officers wore body cameras—for momentum to shift. Five months after CalMatters published its findings, the agency requested funding for full deployment. Lawmakers approved nearly $20 million in 2023, with an additional $5 million in ongoing support.

Still, questions remain. While body cameras have become standard equipment in many urban police departments, research on their effectiveness remains limited. A 2022 study suggests they may reduce police killings over time, but the data isn’t conclusive. In the absence of strong evidence, body-worn cameras are often sold as a symbolic fix to a much deeper problem: a lack of trust between police and the public, especially in Black and Latino communities disproportionately affected by use-of-force incidents.

CHP officers make an estimated 2 million stops each year, and their reach extends beyond highways. In recent years, they’ve been deployed during federal immigration raids in Los Angeles, called in to police Oakland neighborhoods, and tapped to respond to street racing. With such wide-ranging authority, the agency’s decision to implement cameras statewide is being closely watched.

“This is the perfect example of it moving too slow,” said Jones-Sawyer. “I was just 10 years ahead of my time.”

According to CHP spokesperson Jaime Coffee, about 2,400 officers in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and Sacramento have already received cameras. But rollout is only part of the challenge. How the CHP uses the cameras —and how the footage is reviewed and made available—will ultimately determine whether they build trust or simply generate more data.

For those who have long pushed for greater police accountability, the announcement brings a mix of progress and skepticism. After nearly a decade of stops and starts, the cameras are finally coming. However, whether they will meaningfully change the relationship between CHP and the communities it serves remains a question without a clear answer.