The Police Complaints Authority (PCA) agrees with the Police Service Social and Welfare Association that all police officers should wear body cameras.
This renewed call for body cameras follows social media outrage after the police killing of Adelle Gilbert in San Fernando last week.
Gilbert, 37, was working on a construction site near his Carlton Lane, Housing Development Corporation, home and was shot dead during a chase.
The authority’s director, David West, said the recommendation for body cameras was previously made by former PCA director Gillian Lucky at an outreach meeting at the Bon Air High School in November 2012 and at a press conference in June 2014.
West said the use of such cameras has been growing worldwide and has recently been implemented by the Jamaica Constabulary Force.
He said that such devices would improve the level of accountability of the police and would improve transparency in the conduct of police operations.
Former National Security minister Gary Griffith said the use of body cameras was a "reactive" approach.
Griffith said the call for the implementation of body cameras could assist in verifying if officers actually operated within the limits of their authority during confrontation and could not be challenged as the facts would speak for themselves.
However, he said, while body cameras and cameras on the dashboard of police vehicles were valuable they were a primarily reactive approach, as “it is to mainly give evidence to ascertain what actually transpired after the incident has already occurred.”
He said it was unacceptable that officers had limited assets during confrontations. He suggested that non-lethal weapons, such as tasers and pepper spray, be part of an officer’s tools.