These devices allow a firsthand look into an incident and give immediate evidence to a case. Heather Ann Myers wrote about a yearlong investigational study of body cameras for law enforcement and said, “The findings suggest more than a 50 percent reduction in the total number of incidents involving use of force.” In this investigation conducted by Chief Tony Farrar, it is clear that body cameras not only traduced the number of occasions where force was used, but also made these situations more clear, in giving video and audio for every situation. In the article “Police Body Cameras: What are the Pros and Cons?” Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum said, “There are certainly benefits . . . in documenting encounters with the public. It provides the context of what happened.” Wexler noticed the benefit of having these cameras and their video at their disposal as well. These cameras help add to the police officers accountability by reinforcing their stories, or in some cases, denying them completely and help eliminate forceful officers from the…
Police officers argue that body cameras can deal with privacy issues. Privacy won’t become an issue if some of the police officers actually did their job right. Many of the police departments have been denying to wear body cameras because cameras may prevent people from coming forward as credible witnesses to help assist with investigations, due to fear of public exposure and the fear of someone coming after them to kill them. Technological issues related to the cameras may prevent proper functioning at times and the cops are not able to fix them because they don’t know much about technology. This could be due to a dead battery, damaged components, obstructed lens, and other problems. This could result in personnel missing important witness statements or crucial behavior by officers or citizens. The equipment is expensive as well. Some police departments don’t have the money to buy expensive cameras. The cameras the cops need have to have a lot of storage in them. Plus, cameras need to have long-term batteries so that it won’t die out while on duty. Yes,…
These body cameras will be keeping the officers reliable for what all they do near and to the citizens. The cameras that wants to be issued to the officers might not be avoiding a person’s privacy but at times may be shut off will be helpful for court cases and finding criminal justice caused by the citizens or officers. Using the body cameras on officers may cost the United States more money than usual for police officers but will help greatly for criminal justice. There for the officer body camera will help us greatly improve police behavior towards certain crimes and…
Body cameras are having an effect in police-public interaction and are decreasing anomalous behavior by police officers. According to a study made in the Mesa, Arizona, police department “Officers who wore the cameras experienced a 40 % decline…
Cameras have the potential to be a win-win, helping protect the public against police misconduct, and at the same time helping protect police against false accusations of abuse.…
There are many good outcomes that evidence is caught on surveillance footage. This kind of technology can obtain many different activities. For instance, it can provide recording incidents that HPD encounters while being on duty. Published reports have recently agreed on having this new law take place in a few…
The future of police work has change over the past ten years. An Officer’s word was good enough but like all things in life there comes a change. The change that we are seeing in law enforcement currently is the use of body worn cameras. The bigger agencies have had in car cameras for a long time but recently with newer technology officers are now being equipped with body worn cameras. The Executive Director of the Michigan Sheriff’s Association states ‘’ I think it’s a natural evolution from the dash cam,” and “This way, you see what the officer experiences, right or wrong”. (Wawrow p.1 2014) The debate on body worn cameras came mostly after the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. However…
camera has solved the problem of falsely accusing an officer or getting the entire story of what…
In light of recent events, tensions amongst American communities and police officers have heightened due to the shootings of unarmed civilians and the alleged use of excessive force. These events have brought the integrity of police officers into question raising the question onto whether or not police officers should wear body cameras. This would serve to improve public relations with the local communities and provide a new source of indisputable hard evidence. Unfortunately, everything also comes with its disadvantages and while the benefits of body cameras do outweigh the negatives on paper, they may still not be enough to result in wide scale implementation. Such disadvantages include cost, as the cost of a single body camera ranges from $400 to $700 (Taser International Inc.) The reliability of these cameras may also be called into question as technological bugs are inevitable. According to research conducted by PERF and the COPS office, officers should be required to activate their cameras when responding to calls meaning that they are turned off while on duty. This may allow a police officer to tamper with evidence or to manipulate the cameras as they are in total control. Body cameras may be a potential solution for a growing problem, and while there seem to be an abundance of benefits, many drawbacks do also question the viability of such a project.…
Ever since the government has introduced the police body cameras in 2013, both the crime rate and the rate of hostile confrontation between police and citizens have gone down drastically in the areas that the cameras were used. “Complaints against officers dropped 88 percent and use-of-force reports fell by 60 percent.” (Feige) I believe that the reason these numbers have changed so sporadically is because everyone is going to be on their best behavior when the camera is on. Neither the cop nor the citizen is inclined to be hostile because they both know that the camera is on and the camera will not lie when brought up in the court of law.…
We currently live in a world that surveillance camera are used almost everywhere, at homes and businesses, airports, etc. They are also used by law enforcement to conduct investigation. Since the 2001 terrorist attack, cameras have increased (Surette, 2015). One of the issues with surveillance camera that many individuals bring up is that it violates their privacy. Expectation of privacy is one of the many things that the public is concern. Surveillance cameras should be acceptable and it should not matter whether they are hidden or openly displayed if there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. For example, any person that step foot outside of their home and go to the store, or on the road, or to any business open to the public should be…
There have been many complaints about if body cameras on police officers will work or not. There are two people that have different opinions that other people that think body cameras will stop police brutality against police officers. William N. Grigg, and Joshua Krause these people think body cameras on police officers will not work, and will not stop or decrease the violence from police officers. Grigg’s argument is Their arguments are that the officers from the SDPD forgot to turn on their body cameras while on duty. A crime that happened in April, Officer Neal Browder fatally shot a 31-year-old man named Fridoon Zalbeg Rawshannehad, who had been suspected of carrying a knife. After the shooting, no weapon was found, although Rawshannehad was carrying what has been described as “a shiny looking object.”(San Diego Cops…
Police body cameras make it more difficult for police officers, and they will not do their job as well wearing the body cameras. Some people might believe that they actually improve how the police officers work, and that it is fair for the victims. However they do not think much about the police officers, but they only mainly focus on the victims. Justin Ready and Jacob Young, two Arizona School of Criminology assistant professors, conducted an experiment that states key findings like, “officers who did not wear body cameras conducted more ‘Stop-and-frisks’ and made more arrests than officers who wore the video cameras. Officers who did not wear cameras performed 9.8% more stop-and-frisks and made 6.9% more arrests” (Kelsh). With that statement we should not have police body cameras because they are not helping police out in any way.…
Many sources contradict my position on police wearing body cameras. They often believe that officers wearing body cameras is a form of invading the citizens and officer’s privacy. “Privacy issues are of concern for both cops and civilians. How to deal with those concerns is still being evaluated.” Their privacy might be affected, but overall it’s to protect them by providing evidence to support their claims and provide facts in their case. Therefore, body cameras are more useful to officers and citizens than it is…
Since the accusation of police brutality is on the rise, there’s a question of whether police officers should or shouldn’t wear body cameras with their uniform. There can be many issues with wearing body cameras such as, there being an invasion of privacy and the expenses that come along with them. There can be many technical issues involved with the equipment. The cameras aren’t able to record 24/7 because of the lack of storage and battery life. This can cause issues with recordings of certain situations.…