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Body cameras on police essay
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The Use of Body Cameras Independent of Officer Problem Statement
Problem Statement: The problem is the Tempe Police Department permits police officers to determine to activate their body cameras rather than mandate an automatic activation procedure.
The Methodology Used to Defining the Problem
The methodology used to illustrate the problem are observational and archival research. The city of Tempe, adopted the policy of its police officers to use body cameras in conjunction with it counterparts in many cities in the nation. Public sentiment towards police departments around the country has diminished due to the multiple cases of African American men killed in police custody and policy conduct complaints. Multiple sources of information about the death of unarmed men and police aggression triggered the policy changes that resulted in the use of the body cameras for police and citizen protection, that, in turn, produced the policy problem statement in Tempe listed above. In addition, Lt. Edward Ouimette fatally shot Dalvin Hollins on July 28, 2016 but did not turn on his body camera until after the shooting. Hollins died of wounds shortly thereafter (Morrison, 2016), which led to demonstration about the adequacy of TPD execution of public safety duties. To prevent similar events transpiring in the city of Tempe that occurred in other
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There needs to be an estimate of the cost and technical expertise needed to maintain the body cameras. TPD and city law-makers would also have to consider policy that would need to be in place in case the officers’ equipment malfunctions or is rendered ineffectual in some manner. For this reason, there needs to be an understanding among all stakeholders that a change in the policy for body cameras will not alleviate all possibility of police misconduct or be a catchall for false allegation against officers by citizens of police
There are topics brought up about the incident in Ferguson and other police shootings that did or did not have body cams. There have been talks in communities about trying to reduce the police misconducts in the communities and the workplace. It is proven that officers who didn’t wear body cams had 2 times the illegal use of force incidents. This article will help me prove further that body cameras being worn will help reduce so many incidents, not saying all incidents
One of the sources used to disprove that body camera isn’t the answer includes Jamelle Bouie article, Keeping the Police honest. Mr. Bouie is the chief political correspondent at Slate who graduated from the University of Virginia with a political and social thought degree (Tumblr.com). His work consists of issues relating to national politics, public policies and racial inequality. His work has also been published in Slate online magazine, the New Yorker, the Washington Post and TIME Magazine (Tumblr.com). Slate is an online magazine that post about the news, politics, business, technology and culture (slate.com). In Jamelle article, Keeping the Police honest he talks about incidents where police officers were being recorded and took excessive
Police officers with their body cameras: a history and back ground paper to answer the question if should all police officers wear body cameras, it is important to first look at the history and back ground of the topic. According to article of Journal of quantitative criminology, writers Ariel, Farrar, Sutherland, Body cameras have been given a new eye opener to people about the excessive use of force against their community members. Arial, Farrar, and Sutherland in the article state “The effect of police body warn cameras on use of force and citizens’ complaints against the police: A randomize controlled trial” describe their observation as:
Police Body Cameras Due to devastating events that have occurred between policemen and civilians, law enforcements find it liable for police officers to be fitted with body cameras. In doing so it is thought to bring an increase in trust in the community, reduce brutality and crime, as well as elucidate good cops still around. I feel body cameras will bring more awareness to police departments when it comes to the honesty in their staff’s actions when they are unsupervised. They can be used as hard evidence in courtrooms, to help make the correct judgment on the situation in question.
There have been lots of modern technologies introduced in the United States of America to assist law enforcement agencies with crime prevention. But the use of body-worn cameras by police personnel brings about many unanswered questions and debate. Rising questions about the use of body cam are from concern citizens and law enforcement personnel. In this present day America, the use body cameras by all law enforcement personnel and agencies are one of the controversial topics being discussed on a daily base. Body worn cameras were adopted due to the alleged police brutality cases: for instance, the case of Michael Brown, an African-American who was shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, on August 2014, Eric Garner died as a result of being put in a chokehold by a New York police officer, and John Crawford, shot and killed by a police officer at a Walmart in Beavercreek, Ohio.
By law enforcement wearing body cameras can be the first step into taking disciplinary action tour wards police brutality. Body cameras will encourage police officers to be more responsible on handling stressful situation and have more control on themselves, because their actions, he or she are in the public eye. For example study shows, when body cameras where issued police, officers decreased 60 percent of excessive force in the first year initiating of cameras.”(Donovan). The body cameras can control a serious situation
Franklin County was one that was affected by a officer involved shooting. The Franklin County was under a lot of heat due to the fact that the videos that were released didn’t benefit the officers. Additionally, the videos that were recorded in Pasco only show one side of the story. We don’t know what the officers saw in the moments leading up to the shooting. However, if the officers were wearing body cameras, people would probably understand why those actions were taken. Franklin County should implement body cameras for their officers so that next time there’s a situation like this the police officers and the community will be protected.
If body cameras were required many police officers would be serving time in prison for some of their actions. A vast majority of the victims also would not have been harmed. Following a study done by Rialto, Calif. Police that ran from February 2012 to July 2013. A group of officers wore tiny video cameras while interacting with citizens. According to the New York Times, the video cameras resulted in a 60 percent drop in the use of force and an 88 percent drop in complaints against officers (Amalcar Scott, 2015, p.13). On a different randomized controlled trial, “nearly 1,000 officer shifts were randomized over a 12-month period of treatment and control conditions. During ‘‘treatment shifts’’ officers were required to wear and use body-worn-cameras when interacting with members of the public, while during ‘‘control shifts’’ officers were instructed not to carry or use the devices in any way. We observed the number of complaints, incidents of use-of-force, and the number of contacts between police officers and the public, in the years and months preceding the trial (in order to establish a baseline) and during the 12 months of the experiment” (Tabarrok,
The intent of this study is to determine the effects between the independent variable of law enforcement professionals wearing body-cameras and the dependent variable of civilian’s willingness to talk to the police. The research questions that the data collected intends to answer are: Do civilians that come in contact with police deterred from talking to them about relevant information regarding a crime when there is a camera on the officer? What effects do police body-cameras have beyond accountability of law enforcement professionals? Will body-cameras damage communication between civilians and law enforcement that could result in a decrease in willingness to report crimes thus increasing crime itself?
Police officers should be required to wear body cameras because it will build a trust between law enforcement and the community, it will decrease the amount of complaints against police officers, and lastly it will decrease the amount of police abuse of authority. In addition, an officer is also more likely to behave in a more appropriate manner that follows standard operating procedures when encountering a civilian. “A 2013 report by the Department of Justice found that officers and civilians acted in a more positive manner when they were aware that a camera was present” (Griggs, Brandon). Critics claim that the use of body cameras is invasive of the officers and civilians privacy.
Do police officers really need body cameras is a question that has been repeated all throughout the nation. Body cameras are video recording systems that are used by law enforcement to record their interactions with the public and gather video evidence. Most police departments do not wear body cameras currently and the ones that do are in trial phases to see how it works out. There are many advantages to police officers wearing body cameras but in asking the question should they wear body cameras the stakeholders should look at the complete picture. One reason that police and body cameras have constantly been brought up lately are the instances of police brutality happening within the United States. Police brutality within the United States
Evidence: The Mesa (Arizona) Police Department has also found that body-worn cameras can undermine information-gathering efforts. “We have definitely seen people being more reluctant to give information when they know that they are being videotaped,” said Lieutenant Harold Rankin. Chief of Police Sean Whent of Oakland, California, explained, “Our policy is to film all detentions and to keep recording until the encounter is over. But let’s say an officer detains someone, and now that person wants to give up information. We are finding that people are not inclined to do so with the camera running. We are considering changing our policy to allow officers to turn off the camera in those
In 2014, the death of Eric Garner in New York City raised controversial conversations and highlighted the issues of race, crime, and policing in neighborhoods that tend to be poor and racially isolated. Garner, an unarmed black man, was killed after being tackled and held in a “chokehold.” According to the AP Polls in December 2014, “Police killings of unarmed blacks were the most important news stories of 2014.” The problem is that young black men are targeted by police officers in which they have responded with the misuse of force and policy brutality. It is evident that this issue affects many people nationwide. The civilians do not trust the police department and the justice system because they hold the perceptions that police officers are immune from prosecution despite their actions. In particular, black individuals, specifically black males, do not feel safe in the presence of police officers because they are not held accountable for their mistakes.
Officers need sufficient training on the technology they are to use in their job, and policies regarding body cameras use within the police department need to be strong enough to guarantee their success. Across the United States police departments, the level of training and procedures in how to use body cameras vary from police station to police station. Due to this, it is hard to determine what the most effective way to use these cameras is. Those with weak policies are more likely to face legal issues such as the lawsuit in Round Lake. Without knowing how to operate the equipment properly and issues such as placement of the device the technology could become ineffective (Bakardjiev). By training officers to use the equipment properly police officers will be more familiar with it and be able to avoid issues in the equipment. At the forefront of the Round Lake issue, the invasion of privacy must be addressed. The reason cameras are not constantly filming officers is to build a positive work environment and foster trust (Bakardjiev). The ten officers in the lawsuit feel as if that trust was violated. The implications of the lawsuit are those who were in charge of training and ensuring the cameras were working as promised failed, and this has broken the trust of the officers
Huffington Post shared a study that was created by University of South Florida, which surveyed the Orlando Police Department’s pilot program. This survey was done at random, it picked 46 officers who were to wear the device and then the survey looked at 43 officers who did not wear the body cam.This is a common trend all across social media and news, that police “too often” abuse power. Though this isn’t a true statement because there are no statistics conclusive enough to prove this due to the government not collecting that data, which was said by the Free Thought Project (adweek). Police officers across the nation become sworn officers because they want to make a difference in their communities not break them apart and cause unrest. The disappointing part about all of these allegations against police are that the people see just a few crooked people who happen to be a police officer and the people are quick to judge the whole system and believe that all officers are bad even though the good officers far surpass the effects of the crooked ones. This describes how police are looked at and the statistic from Policeone.com offeres an insight into the protection offered by dashcams which would correlate to the body cams. “According to the responses of more than 3,000 officers completing the written survey,