Shyann Gaulien
Police Brutality / Body Cameras
Argumentative Essay
Summer Session
Mr. Grenier
Stop Police Brutality “The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.” - John F. Kennedy. There is a controversy today on whether or not policeman are abusing their power. To lessen police brutality, police are issued to wear body cameras while on duty to record incidents, which protect themselves and others. Policemen should be required to wear body cameras to ensure the public of no police brutality. To begin, cameras will not only help the police when accused of police brutality, but they will be able to help victims who also suffer from it. At times, it is difficult to prove that an officer has used excessive force. In fact, the footage will be available to help a case in court. After a police station did a trial with the cameras, they found that shifts without cameras experienced twice as many “use-of-force" incidents as the shift using cameras. For example, during the study, there was an 88% reduction in complaints against officers when wearing the cameras. Lastly, cameras have led the public to a more safe feeling and later, having a more positive outcome.
…show more content…
The D.C. agency writes to confirm the availability for the footage to only be for select people, including the ones recorded. The officials confirm they will not openly distribute the footage due to the privacy of those recorded. D.C. later states, "There are 30 frames per second, and officials say a seemingly simple task of obscuring a face or a license plate number requires manual adjustments in each frame. Blurring three images in a 10-minute video requires making 54,000 separate changes." Agreeing that it requires a lot of work, the D.C. agrees to only let the victims and witnesses be able to view the videos. D.C. councilmember, Kenyan McDuffie, says he will request a hearing for the public to have a right to see the
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
Have you ever heard of the idea of body-mounted cameras on police officers? If not, David Brooks will introduce you to the idea that was discussed in an article from New York Times called “The Lost Language of Privacy”. In this article, the author addressed both the positive and negative aspects of this topic but mostly concerned with privacy invasion for Americans. Although that is a valid concern but on a larger scale, he neglected to focus greatly on the significant benefits that we all desire.
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.
“A body-worn camera in public policing is a miniature audio and video recording device which allows recording of officers’ duties and citizen interaction,” notes Thomas K. Bud. Police body-cameras are significantly growing in popularity across Canada. While legislation has not confirmed definite rules regarding the use of body-cameras, local police departments have begun their implementation. Canadian police services involved in these projects include Toronto, Victoria, Edmonton, Calgary, and Amherstburg Police Services. The results of these projects have revealed mixed thoughts regarding body-camera effectiveness. Is it a good idea for police to wear body-cameras? While the cost of police wearing body cameras seems prohibitive, police wearing
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
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,
Since their inception, police body cameras have been a controversial topic as many do not agree on their effectiveness and legality. To the trained eye, body cameras clearly have no negatives other than the sheer cost of their implementation. Some people, nonetheless, do believe that it is an encroachment of privacy for police to record private and/or public interactions even though it is purely legal. While that may be seen as a negative, it is wholly subjective and must be completely ignored when considering the factual analysis of police body camera use that is necessary to verify their validity. When only taking fact into account, there is no way to deny the nearly infinite benefits of body cameras.
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.
In “Body Cameras Will Stop Police Brutality.” the author Adam Schiff announces, “With half of the police department wearing cameras recording each interaction with the public, the department experienced an 88 percent reduction in complaints against officers.” This statement shows protecting the officers because this shows the cameras did something to deter the people who made false accusations against the police officers because their was evidence. Schiff also acknowledges that, “…shifts without cameras experienced twice as many use-of-force incidents as shifts using the cameras.” The fact that the use of excessive force was cut in half due to cameras shows that the citizens are benefiting due to this because the officers knew that it wouldn’t be their word against a civilian and the body cameras hold them accountable and makes them believe that they have to answer to the law as
Body cameras have been the new initiative over the past few years. Barack Obama announced that in 2014 allocated millions of dollars for federal funding to allow police officers to wear body cameras and to increase their training (Harvard Law Review). There are many organizations that have voiced their opinion of the use of body cameras. Many have stated that body cameras are a good idea and they should be implemented. The American Civil Liberties Union has stated that they are believe body cameras should be used across the country, but the public should still have their privacy (Harvard Law Review).
Thesis: By implementing Body cameras there will be more effective ways to monitor police activity the ability to protect civilians and law officials will greatly increase. Today I would like to share more with everyone the huge issue police brutality plays in our society and hopefully by the end of my speech you will want police officers to wear mandatory body cameras as well.
On August 09, 2014 an incident involving an 18 year old named Michael Brown and Police Officer Darren Wilson sparked an immediate demand for police across the nation to be mandated to wear police body cameras. This incident between these two was also immediately politicalized, racialized, and seemed to galvanize the public’s opinion that police in general were racist, corrupt and untrustworthy.
Say like you in a parking lot and you minding your own business and people “think” your doing something illegal and you get falsely accused those cameras can help you in a good time but say if you were on the phone and the cameras had sound or a microphone to capture sound and here you over the phone t...