BATON ROUGE - The Baton Rouge Police Department is making changes to how they use their body cameras. They will now be linked to a camera system inside all marked cars.

“Our officers like to have cameras.," Sgt. Matt Johnson said. "Sometimes complaints are made against them, it clears up complaint, and helps them sure up arrests."

Before, officers had to manually turn on their body cameras. Now they'll be turned on automatically.

“We don't want [officers] to have to struggle making the decisions like 'should I turn on the camera?',” said Johnson. “It will help them get to that next level to transition easily in what they need to do.”

The system works through a program on the officer’s laptops.

“When they turn on their lights, it turns on all of the cameras,” said Johnson. “They're able to manually turn on any camera, and they can start and stop recording. They can do the same thing with their front camera, rear and body camera.”

Right now crews are working to get the system installed in all 400 marked cop cars. So far 100 of them are done.

“It’s going to take a couple months to finish the whole project,” said Johnson.

Johnson said the change is being made to increase the department’s accountability.

“It’s good for the public to see what we do, it’s good for the administration to see what we do and it’s good for the officers. It’s helping them do their job day to day,” said Johnson.

City Council put aside money for the new system in 2017.