Police Body Cameras Benefits

The social media and the public might want police body cam footage release but sometimes it might be to graphic or controversial. Police body cameras have been a topic since the incident with Michael Brown in august of 2014. Police shot and killed an unarmed individual in ferguson, MO, leading to many people wanting cameras on police. Whether the cameras are a good idea or not this paper will explore the facts and sides of police body cameras. Overall body cameras should be required Because they can save the lives of the innocent, keep innocent people from going to jail, and can help a case as more evidence.

Across the country a growing number of legislative departments have been debating about the pros and cons of police body cameras. This paper will further explore benefits, as well as the downfalls of using such devices. This paper will also look at specific cases and examine whether or not body cameras were helpful in various situations. It will examine if they were a deterrent in cases dealing with police brutality and domestic violence. It also looks at how they could be misused and assisting some officers in covering up their corrupt behavior.

Within recent years there has been much controversy surrounding police officers and whether or not they should be wearing body cameras to document their everyday interactions with the public. While the use of body cameras may seem to invade the public or police privacy. Police-worn body cameras will be beneficial to law enforcement and civilians all over the world. Police must be equipped with body cameras to alleviate any doubt in the effectiveness of officers. Law enforcement worn body cameras would enhance the trust of the public by keeping both the officers and the citizens accountable for their actions, providing evidence, and helping protect them from false accusations, while protecting privacy

To peep or not to peep, that is the question being asked by many regarding police body cameras in communities. The topic of police brutality is a rising issue in today’s society. Several questions have arose over the use of police body cameras and whether they are a good or bad idea. Police body cameras have has a variety of concern to many communities regarding their potential. Every city has a different trust and relationship for their police force and these concerns vary depending on the community. People have the concern regarding privacy, protection, and impact on the community and more. After researching the problems caused by Police body cameras as well as its background, the current state of the issue, and the potential solutions, it is clear that communities need to bring a solution to this situation.Such as laws, policies, rules, and more to control this new information.

Body cameras in policing are still new, but more and more agencies are beginning to implement this technology into their line of work. At first police officers were very hesitant to wear these body cameras because they were afraid they would infringe themselves and give away their own privacy. Later, as body cameras were beginning to see more use in the work place, officers began to realize that these very own body cameras that they once thought would only cause themselves harm would actual prove to be useful in a variety of situations. Some of these situations can be citizen complaints, to even backing up an officers use of force. Body cameras can be the one sole thing that can give

Body cameras are proven to make policemen act better while they’re are on duty. “Police officers "tend to behave a little better"(Kon, Body Cameras for Police Officers). if they know their behavior is being recorded on camera” stated author Tsin Yen Kon. Police will act better cause they know they are being “watched”. Just like when a student has a parent to sit in their class, they act very well, police do the same. Police will also act right, because they don’t want to lose their jobs or get fired because some careless mistake that they made while on camera. “When police officers are acutely aware that their behavior is being monitored (because they turn on the cameras), and when officers tell citizens that the cameras are recording their behavior, everyone behaves better” (Knickerbocker). Brad Knickerbocker, the author, explains how both sides of the camera, police, and criminal will have an effect on their behavior because they know that they are being watched, and recorded. When people know they are being watched, it is like they get scared, because they don't want anything to be used against them. Although cameras will make police act better, people will still think that police brutality will still happen.

“In the first year after the camera 's introduction, the use of force by officers’ decline 60%, and citizens’ complaints against police fell 88%”. (Christopher Mims) The introduction of police body cameras impacted the world in many better ways than bad. But, police body cameras were introduced due to the public 's awareness to police brutality and numerous of publicity deaths which has impacted the outcome of police interactions.

They have the power and responsibility to use the force, but citizens expect them to use the amount of force that is proportional, reasonable and necessary for the situation. However, the used of body cameras on police officers will reduce police misconduct like the use of offensive language, including racial slurs, or act with more force than necessary during encounters with citizens. These cameras will keep track of what the officer says or does when at the scene of the crime, keeping them liable. Police Foundation Executive Fellow, Chief Tony Farrar, wanted to test out this theory with a yearlong study. The cameras were distributed to all the patrol officers of the California Rialto Police Department. During their 12 month test period they were haphazardly assigned to experimental or control conditions to see the results and after the test period ended, the results showed very interesting results. “The findings suggest more than a 50% reduction in the total number of incidents of use-of-force compared to control-conditions, and nearly ten times more citizens’ complaints in the 12-months prior to the experiment.” says Chief Farrar (Ariel, et al). Law enforcement officers improved their behavior when using cameras by simply knowing that someone would see their behavior and their performance as officers when the supervisor or the officer in charge was reviewing the camera when your turn

This article describes how the increase of body cameras will help reduce police misconduct by recording police-citizen encounters, and serving as evidence of what happened. This article also talks about the complications that it contains. One of the complications are the privacy concerns, many people say they don't want their police encounters to be all over social media. It also says that body cameras are not the only thing that will make officers behave, it says they also need reforms of use-of-force policy and training. Even though there are many privacy concerns experts have said that those concerns can be resolved with the right policies. This is a great article to use because it appeals to

In the United States, in particular, policies such as this may be necessary to reduce police shootings and abuse of suspects. “In 2011, police killed six people in Australia, two in England, six in Germany and, according to an FBI count, 404 in the United States. And that FBI number counted only “justifiable homicides,” and was comprised of voluntarily submitted data from just 750 of 17,000 law enforcement agencies” (Stanley). The hope is that the implementation of these cameras reduces these numbers by a significant margin by providing reason for both the cops and the criminals to be more controlled. The use of cameras could also decrease the fear of police officers in routine crime stops if the citizen is aware that the officer’s actions are being recorded and

Over the past few years, there have been many complaints about police brutality. Some of these have even ended in the deaths of the civilians. Because of the deaths, citizens have lost a lot of trust in police officers. Now the departments are trying to fix this loss of trust, and one of the ways is to have officers wear body cameras. With officers wearing the cameras there will be a video of everything that happens between the officers and civilians. The police departments are hoping with these videos that civilians will be more willing to trust the officers since everything will be recorded, and the officers will not be able to deny or hide anything that happens. In this essay, I want to show some of the many benefits for the cameras. A few of these would be that the videos give evidence of what happens between the officers and civilians, officers and civilians are more aware of their actions when the cameras are present, because of this there have been fewer complaints made against officers, the use of force has also decreased since police have started using the cameras, but there is still the concern of peoples’ privacy being protected.

In 2015, Ready and Young did a research to explain how body cameras influence police-citizen interactions. They conclude that officers assigned to wear body cameras conducted less “stop-and-frisks” and made less arrests than officers who didn’t were the video cameras. They suggest that the reason of that was because they were more carefully and they didn’t want to take risks. They also issued more citations for ordinance violations, did more interactions with people and they perceived the camera as a helpful device while they were interacting with citizens. It seems that the camera-wearing officers and non-camera-wearing officers didn’t change their behavior when they had to give verbal warnings to citizens. The authors think that the fact of wear a camera that records all you do, can condition the behavior of the officers (The Hawthorne effect), making them act more carefully about criminal policy and procedures and being more

In order to decrease police brutality and stop abuse of power there is a solution that can be set for both the Law Enforcement and the community. Wearing body cameras is ideal, for example, in Rialto, California, the police department has set an experiment to wear these body cameras and the results were rather shocking. The abuse of “force” or power by police went down by 59% and police complaints down to 88%. ("If Ferguson Officer Wore a Camera: Our View.")

Evidence from a study done by police in California states, “Rialto, Calif., performed an in-depth experiment when it first started using the cameras, randomly assigning officers to use cameras or not on each shift. In the first year, it found that officers who wore cameras were half as likely to use force and more than 90% less likely to be the subject of a complaint.”(Ebi 1). The statistics are overwhelming across the board on the departments that use body cameras, showing that all of them showed significant declines in bother likely use of force and amount of complaints. The significance of this evidence is huge due to the fact these cameras are having a positive effect on the encounter between them and a citizen. The idea that your conduct is constantly in check when handling a situation clearly has an impact on how officers are going about situations. Rialtos Police chief speaks to how it is putting everyone on their best behavior and positively effecting conduct in the field (Ebi

One of the newest technological topics that is being discussed is that of the office Body Worn Camera (BWC). This device is worn on the body and records the interactions between police and the citizenry. This increases both officer and citizen accountability. BWC’s have already been in use by law enforcement, as a pilot program, since 2012. The cities of Mesa, Arizona, Rialto, California, and Phoenix, Arizona, have piloted programs and conducted studies on their effectiveness. There is not much of empirical studies on the impact of BWCs. The City of Rialto, California conducted a randomized study in 2013, and found that the use of BWCs reduced citizens’ complaints and use of force by 59% and 87.5% (Farrar & Ariel, 2014). This was one