Argumentative Essay On Body-Worn Body Cameras

In response to racial profiling, authorities initiated the police-worn body cameras. This policy became more widespread in the wake of the 2014 incident in Ferguson where an unarmed black teenager was fatally shot by a white police officer (The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and Upturn 2016). This event has gained increasing media attention in the United States and in order to “shield themselves from unwarranted accusations and build trust with their communities,” law enforcement agencies like police departments across the country have rapidly adopted body-worn cameras for their officers (Kampfe 2015). A year before this extensive policy took place, attention was drawn to a district in New York for having the highest volume

Efforts are taken by police departments all over the country to solve the issue through the body-worn camera policy. This policy does show some resolutions to racial profiling according to several studies and department chiefs’ claims. However, there are many impactful consequences of the social problem that were not specifically discussed. On top of that, there are problems growing out of the policy itself. Notwithstanding the flaws in the policy, there are more than 50% of Caucasians and more than 60% of both African Americans and Hispanics supporting the proposal for police officers to wear body cameras (The Cato Institute 2015). On the other hand, studies on how this policy might impact citizen willingness to call the police and to cooperate as victims or witnesses have received much less attention than studies on officers (Lum et al. 2015). To better our society and improve the effectiveness of body-worn camera policy, more research on citizen behaviors and attitudes towards the policy should be conducted because the outcomes can have a substantial influence on police performance with regard to not only resolving racial profiling but other social problems as