Arguments Against Mandatory Body Cameras

With all the arguments supporting body cameras, there are many arguments against mandatory body cameras for the police. One argument against body cameras is major privacy concerns. Many civil rights advocates are trying to show police forces and lawmakers the dangers and the risk of having too much surveillance and profiling of the people can pose. There are guidelines that prohibit police officers to view the camera footage before filing the reports and public safety officials limit the use of facial recognition. One worry people have is about the control the police will have over the footage. When they allow the police to view the body camera footage before filing their reports, this brings up concerns that officers will change their reports

to adapt to what the saw in the footage. Also there is a difficult issue on who should be able to review the footage. (Vega, Tanzina) With the footage, there is a challenge on when and how the public see the footage of police brutality incident. There are new reports on how to find the middle ground of protecting the privacy laws that are already in place, which protects civilians that did not consent to be recorded. In the Associated Press, one of the reporters wrote:
A policy to release all police-recorded videos could mean footage of the inside of a person's home or a hospital would be available. But if the policy is not to release footage in order to protect a person's privacy, that could mean a video of an officer shooting someone would not be made public, defeating the main purpose of the use of these cameras.[....] Some departments redact the faces of bystanders or those arrested, or blur a video so much that little is recognizable. Others won't release video if it's part of an ongoing investigation. Some policies allow officers to turn their cameras on and off.(New Debate)
There was a major incident in South carolina that involved a police officer shooting and killing a man named Walter Scott. This became a central case on police accountability after the police officer who shot Scott lied about what happened. In the footage on the officer's dashcam, it showed Scott running away but on a bystander’s cellphone revealed that Scott was shot in the back. When this happened the South Carolina Governor, Nikki Haley, signed a legislation that required all police officers to wear body cameras. But in the new policy it says that the footage that is captured would not be available to the public. This means that media and people of the public would not be able to request footage or audio captured on the body camera. With this, the police are allowed to choose whether or not to release the footage. Giving police complete control over on how to use the body cameras will cause major harm.(New Debate)
Many people want to see more of what the police force in doing because of all the violence that is going on and it is reasonable, but one of the main privacy concerns with this is with civilians.

If the footage taken from the body cameras is considered public record, hours of footage of innocent civilian’s interactions with the police is available. If the police enter a person's home and they are wearing a body camera, this can show private information and possibly reveal embarrassing things to the public. Many people have been worried about the kind of surveillance measures that the government use with the types of technology. One major issue people have is when should the police officers have their body cameras turned on because there are many instances involving personal cases such as domestic violence and rape cases. Footage from the dash-cam on the police cars have been exploited for many years for entertainment purposes. There have been many times that dash-cam videos have been posted on entertainment websites such as Youtube and TMZ have exposed many people during these interactions with the police. If officers wear body cameras, this could put the public eye into someone's living room or bedroom. With all these challenges, there has been no policy regarding the body cameras. In a survey for 63 law enforcement agencies regarding body cameras said “nearly a third of the agencies had no written policy on the devices.” Most of these agencies are just putting body

cameras on their officers not having any regulations.(Pearce, Matt)
There has been a rush to get police officers equipped with body cameras after all the cases of police brutality.

With this comes large bills for the local governments managing the massive amounts of footage. For storage alone, some cities would be paying millions of dollars. These cost can cause a significant effect on the budget of the city and these cities might have to make cuts. In Baltimore, the city mayor denied a proposal for all police officer to wear body cameras because the cost for them are unbelievable. The city officials estimated that $2,6 million would be the cost per year to manage all the storage and the hire new staff needed control all the storage. "Knowing how we didn't have a lot of wiggle room with the budget constraints we face, we couldn't afford to get it wrong," said Rawlings-Blake, who intends to present another plan this spring. "Any time you do something on this scale, if you don't take the time up front, you are setting yourself up for failure and disappointment from the community." The demand for body cameras has skyrocketed after the incidents in Ferguson and President Obama requested $75 million to help communities pay for these body cameras. With the introduction to body cameras, with the plans the have in place, on average it would be between $20 to $100 per officer in each city. Most cities are not even sure if they can afford the body cameras and when to turn them on or off. With officers being out in the community every day and they

have to record all their interactions, all that footage add up. In multiple cities they are spending massive amounts on body cameras and it is taking out the budget of the community. In Duluth, they received a deal on cameras from a camera maker, which was 84 cameras for $5,000, but they had to sign a three year deal for storage and it cost almost $78,000. "It's enormous," said Police Chief Gordon Ramsay of Duluth, Minnesota, where the city's 110 officer-worn cameras are generating 8,000 to 10,000 videos per month that are kept for at least 30 days and in many cases longer. "The more you capture, the more you have to store, which means higher costs." Many cities are also struggling to pay for body camera. In Wichita, Kansas, the police department has proposed to sell a helicopter that they used to search for suspects to be able to fund the body camera program for their officers. In only 10 years the estimated cost in Wichita for body cameras and employees to run storage is $6.4 million. In Berkeley, California, the city manager said that the cost is about $45,000 a year just for storing data alone from 150 cameras and some officers might spend at least 30 minutes each shift processing the footage. In San Diego, they have a five-year contract with with a company for 1,000 cameras and this would cost about $267,000 for the devices and another $3.6 million to store and maintain all the footage and for other related equipment. Some police officials say that the price for body cameras will be more expensive than the dash cam. Most departments say that it is hard to find money to maintain body cameras in the long run. With all these cost, it could cause tax hikes and service cuts. "Everybody is screaming, 'We need body cameras.' But nobody is saying, where is the money coming from? What are you going to do with all the data? Who is going to manage it?" said Sgt. Jason Halifax of the Des Moines Police Department, which is struggling to identify a funding source for $300,000 to start a program. "Are we going to cut personnel? Are we going to increase taxes?"(Baskt, Brian.)
With body cameras, there are many pros and cons. With an increasing growth in incidents with the police, body cameras could be a complicated issue. There are many decisions that need to made because the safety of the the people is very important. Also the cities local governments also have to make decisions because with this it could cause major problems in the budget. There are many arguments for and against body cameras and they are all important to consider.