The Bureau of Justice Assistance has opened the FY 2026 Body-Worn Camera Policy and Implementation Program to Support Law Enforcement Agencies. The competitive program supports publicly funded law enforcement and correctional agencies purchasing or leasing body-worn cameras and developing comprehensive BWC programs.
While camera acquisition remains an eligible expense, the FY 2026 solicitation makes clear that successful implementation involves much more than equipment. Agencies must show how cameras will be incorporated into policies, training, daily operations and the broader management of digital evidence.
Application deadlines
Applicants must complete a two-step application process:
- Submit the SF-424 through Grants.gov by September 25, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. ET.
- Submit the complete application through JustGrants by October 2, 2026, at 8:59 p.m. ET.
Agencies should also confirm that their SAM.gov registration is active before beginning the application.
Eligibility
Eligible applicants include:
- State governments
- County governments
- City and township governments
- Special district governments
- Tribal governments
- Independent school districts
- Public and state-controlled institutions of higher education
- Other units of local government
- Publicly funded law enforcement agencies
- Publicly funded correctional agencies
Authorized agencies or consortia, including regional authorities and State Administering Agencies, may also apply on behalf of eligible agencies.
Multi-jurisdictional projects are permitted. However, one organization must serve as the applicant, with participating agencies included as subrecipients rather than co-applicants.
Funding and award period
BJA expects to award up to $13,167,493 through approximately 16 grants:
- Category 1: Approximately 12 awards for publicly funded law enforcement agencies
- Category 2: Approximately four awards for publicly funded correctional agencies
Awards may be up to $2 million and will have a 36-month performance period beginning October 1, 2026.
The program requires a 50% match based on the federal award amount. For every federal dollar requested, the recipient must contribute one dollar in cash or eligible in-kind support. Federal funding is also limited to $2,000 per body-worn camera.
Funding categories and allowable activities
Category 1 supports state, local, tribal and territorial law enforcement agencies establishing or expanding BWC programs. Applicants must describe a phased deployment plan, policy development, training and the integration of cameras into agency operations. Projects should explain how BWC use will improve evidence collection, officer safety and agency practices.
Category 2 supports publicly funded correctional agencies implementing or expanding BWC programs in correctional facilities or among personnel responsible for community supervision.
Projects may involve:
- New agency-wide BWC programs
- Pilot programs
- Expansion to additional personnel
- Replacement of aging cameras
- Camera purchases or leases
- Policy development
- Officer and staff training
- Digital evidence storage and management
- Integration with case-management systems
- Evidence sharing with prosecutors and other justice partners
Recipients will be required to submit a copy of their final BWC policy to BJA.
What changed for FY 2026?
Recent BWC solicitations separated several specialized priorities into distinct funding categories. For example, previous years included standalone categories for digital evidence management and integration, prosecutor-related projects, and the use of BWC footage for training and constitutional policing.
The FY 2026 solicitation is organized into only two categories: law enforcement agencies and correctional agencies. That change makes the program less prescriptive, but it does not signal a return to proposals focused primarily on camera purchases.
The current program objectives continue to emphasize:
- Secure capture, storage, sharing and retention of BWC footage
- Integration of footage into case-management systems
- Efficient storage, tagging and retrieval
- Prosecutorial review and courtroom use
- Strategic deployment to improve officer safety
- Use of footage in response to unfounded complaints or misconduct allegations
Applicants should treat these objectives as a strong indication of what BJA expects from a comprehensive BWC program.
The larger digital-evidence challenge
Body-worn cameras are now part of a much larger digital-evidence environment. Agencies must account for storage, system integration, cybersecurity, redaction, retention, disclosure, auditing and evidence sharing with prosecutors, courts and other law enforcement partners.
For agencies with mature BWC programs, the main problem may no longer be getting cameras onto officers. It may be managing what happens after recording begins.
A competitive application should explain how footage moves through the agency and the criminal justice system, who can access it, how it is reviewed and disclosed, and how the agency will manage the growing financial and administrative burden.
Agencies proposing only to purchase or replace cameras may have difficulty standing out unless the request is tied to a clearly defined operational problem and a broader implementation plan.
Opportunities for regional collaboration
Multi-jurisdictional and intermediary-led applications may be especially useful for smaller agencies that cannot independently support advanced evidence-management capabilities.
A regional project could strengthen a proposal when collaboration results in:
- Shared evidence-management systems
- Better interoperability
- Coordinated policies and training
- Improved evidence sharing
- Greater purchasing power
- Access to technical capabilities that individual agencies could not sustain alone
The partnership should address a real operational need. Simply combining several camera requests without a clear regional purpose is unlikely to make an application more competitive.
A smaller and more competitive funding environment
FY 2026 has a considerably smaller program footprint than the previous two years:
| Fiscal year | Available funding | Anticipated awards |
| FY 2024 | $29 million | 52 |
| FY 2025 | $22.82 million | 40 |
| FY 2026 | $13.17 million | 16 |
FY 2026 funding is approximately 42% lower than FY 2025, and the number of anticipated awards has fallen by 60%. Compared with FY 2024, available funding has declined by approximately 55%, while anticipated awards have declined by about 69%.
The actual level of competition will depend on the number and quality of applications received. Still, agencies should expect that demonstrating a basic need for cameras will not be enough.
What strong applications should address
Applicants should clearly identify the operational problem behind the project and explain how the proposed investment will improve current practices.
The proposal should address:
- The number of cameras that will be purchased or leased
- Whether the project is a pilot, new deployment, expansion or replacement
- How BWC footage will be captured, stored, tagged, retrieved and retained
- How evidence will be transferred to prosecutors or other justice partners
- How the project will improve officer safety and evidentiary documentation
- How policies and training will support implementation
- How the agency will sustain equipment, storage and staffing costs after the award ends
- How project partners and subrecipients will contribute to implementation
Applicants should give particular attention to project design and organizational capacity. Together, those sections account for 60% of the application score. Sustainability and the required dollar-for-dollar match also need to be addressed early in project planning.
Bottom line
The FY 2026 solicitation has fewer specialized funding categories, but its expectations extend well beyond adopting a policy and purchasing or leasing cameras.
The strongest proposals will connect BWC deployment to the full digital-evidence lifecycle. Agencies that present a practical plan for evidence management, integration, interoperability, sharing, long-term sustainability and cross-agency collaboration will be better positioned in a year with substantially fewer anticipated awards.
Review the complete FY 2026 BWC solicitation.
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