The past decade has seen a proliferation of law enforcement security cameras in public areas, with central London having more cameras than any other city. In cities like New York, Los Angeles, and central London, cameras can be found at almost every intersection. Terrorist attacks have been a major basis for this significant increase in law enforcement security cameras; however, privacy advocates, along with many of the public, feel that it’s an invasion of privacy. People are concerned that all this video surveillance, which is continuously expanding, has created a “Big Brother” society, where people are constantly watched. This creates paranoia and unease for people that just want to go about living there private lives, without feeling that their every move is being watched. The increased presence of surveillance cameras is almost compared to George Orwell’s novel from 1984, where he imagined a future in which people would be monitored and controlled by the government. One question that needs to be asked is: does the benefits of law enforcement security cameras outweigh the negative sides to it? Although the invasion of privacy is a serious argument against law enforcement cameras; nevertheless, it should be seen as a valuable tool to help fight crime. As long as surveillance cameras are in public places and not in people's homes, privacy advocates should not be concerned. There are many benefits to having law enforcement security cameras, which people take for granted, and are quick to point out the negative. Having a network of cameras on every street in the city increases the chances of preventing a crime, along with the ability to capture a criminal on video. Some people argue that the cameras generate an overwhelming amount... ... middle of paper ... ...se of this technology, in order to avoid it being abused. However, because all this technology is relatively new, there are not really any policies that are enacted yet. This will all change in the future, now that the media and privacy advocates are starting to ask questions. Law enforcement security cameras clearly have many benefits to our society, and with the right policies in place; the negative aspects will pale in comparison. Works Cited Kelly, Heather. "After Boston: The Pros and Cons of Surveillance Cameras." CNN. Cable News Network, 26 Apr. 2013. Web. 14 May 2014. Horng, Eric. "'Camera on Every Corner': Protection or Invasion?" ABC News. ABC News Network, 29 July 2007. Web. 14 May 2014. Stanley, Jay. "Accountability vs. Privacy: The ACLU's Recommendations on Police Body Cameras." American Civil Liberties Union. N.p., 09 Oct. 2013. Web. 15 May 2014.
Our current society is very much like Big Brother and 1984. The Federal government are not watching us through a telescreen but they are watching and going through our things. I know this because there is a Ted Talk that I watched about privacy and how the FBI goes through our emails, messages… etc, without our permission. To sum that up, in the article “Long Beach Police to Use 400 Cameras Citywide to Fight Crime,” in paragraphs 2 and 3 says that “Chief McDonnell is turning more than 400 cameras citywide as a solution to stop crime,... McDonnell has set up to tap into hundreds of privately owned cameras” to watch over the city and what goes around. Big Brother used telescreens to watch and hear everything, Chief McDonnell uses cameras to see everything that’s going on. My 4th teacher would most likely disagree with me, he is a LB police officer, so he knows having cameras to watch over the city is only making the city a better/ safer place.
Obama has already funded 50,000 cameras to be used for law enforcement. Skeptics argue that cameras would be useless and used to monitor the general population. The article is narrated by three individuals with different stands on cameras, two for the use of cameras and one against. They debate back and forth about effectiveness, trial outcomes, general public involvement and learning process related to cameras. This will help me see an argument against cameras, but also providing good information for the use of cameras.
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.
If misused, body-cameras can be a violation of privacy. In order to prevent this, proper legislation needs to be enacted in order to ensure privacy rights are protected. The only policy related document regarding police body cameras is the “Guidance for the use of body-worn cameras by law enforcement authorities” which is issued by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. This document discusses that rules should not be enforced only by local police departments, but for Canada as a whole. As this is the only document related to police body cameras, it is undoubtable that there needs to be serious legislation created. As it is suggested that body cameras pose as a risk for privacy rights, it is evident in order to implement them effectively, there needs to be regulation constructed. Body cameras can be an effective and useful tool, but without legislation, they can cause problems. Bruce Chapman, president of the Police Association of Ontario expresses, “We want to do it right. We don’t want to do it fast” when asked about the implementation of body cameras. While body cameras, are important to have in today's society, it is also dire to have it done properly. By enforcing strict guidelines, and documents addressing body camera legislation, it will ensure the process is done correctly. In order to implement body cameras properly, privacy rights need to be assessed. This process takes time, and proves body cameras need to be implemented at a pace legislation can follow. Thomas K. Bud, discusses the worry that privacy will be violated with body cameras. Factors such as facial recognition, citizen consent of recording, and violations of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms all pose as risks. While legislation has not matched their guidelines with modern technology, it proves how important it is to create new documents, in order for changes to be made. Therefore body
Although the conduct of police officers and the validity of the video evidence will be scrutinized, body cameras are necessary because police brutality and falsified reports would be diminished. Malcom X stated “If someone puts their hands on you make sure they never put their hands on anybody else again.” In my opinion, I feel the police officers would be held in check due to the knowledge of their constant monitoring. The controversy surrounding police body cameras have been great because the desire of people wanting to protect themselves and their community. The conceptual intent of these cameras would not only be to protect the suspect being recorded, as well as, the officer that is involved in the situation in question.
The researcher hypothesizes that the use of body-cameras on police officers would reduce the instances of gainful communication between civilians and law enforcement. The null-hypothesis is that the use of body-cameras on police officers will have no effect on gainful communication between civilian and law enforcement. In determining the implications of how body-cameras effects civilian behavior, the research will include a sampling survey of criminal justice students and information gathered from journal documents related to research on police 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 Rialto, California, a police department participated and contributed to a study regarding the impact of equipping officers (Ariel, Farrar & Sutherland , 2014). The results are empirical and irrefutable. The officers wore body-mounted cameras that recorded everything that happened during encounters. Ariel et al. (2014) reports that “during the first year after cameras were employed the use of force by police officers reportedly declined 60% and complaints from citizens against law enforcement decreased by 88%.” The authors also report that “the number of complaints filed against officers dropped from 0.7 complaints per 1,000 contacts to 0.07 per 1,000.” The idea of having a camera reporting your actions is a strong motivator that helps to govern officer force used. This is the transparency and reporting required helping restore the nation’s trust in our law
Is your privacy being invaded by America’s police force? Across the nation, numerous police officers are required to wear a compact, portable camera attached to their uniforms. Body- worn cameras were recently introduced to document incidents and encounters between officers and the public. Debates are stirring up around the public if body-cameras are not constitutional and should be eliminated. Many people believe the police body-camera takes away peoples right of privacy and not having the right to decide to be filmed or not. The article written by Jim Walsh effectively reveals the benefits of police body-cameras, by using persuasive logical evidence.
Kammerer, Dietmar. Surveillance in Literature, film and television. Routledge Handbook of Surveillance Studies, pages 99-106. 2012. Seen in: MDIA322: Media, Technologies & Surveillance. Kathleen Kuehn. Wellington: Victoria University, 2014. 82-89. Print.
There are an estimated 30 million surveillance cameras in the United States, proving to be a normal feature in American lives (Vlahos). This is no surprise because in the past several years, events such as the 9/11 attack and the availability of cheaper cameras have accelerated this trend. But conflicts have come with this and have ignited, concerning the safety of the people versus the violation of privacy that surveillance has. Although camera surveillance systems are intended to provide safety to the public, the violation of privacy outweighs this, especially in a democratic country like America.
Video cameras are being deployed around the nation to help with crime solving, but some people are concerned about their privacy. Having cameras to monitor public areas have shown to be useful in situations such as identifying the bombers of the Boston marathon in early 2013. There have also been issues with these cameras however, as people are concerned they are too invasive of their privacy and have been misused by police officers in the past. Some people want to find a balance in using cameras in public so that they can continue to help with crime solving while making sure they are not too invasive and are properly used.
Basically security cameras are basically good and bad in all ways due to helping the public and bad for invading peoples privacy daily which would not surprise me that the government is also up to no good doing all of this but if it helps catches people who are hacking computers from other countries then oh well with that stuff. So in all ways they are good and bad for most public areas besides stores and high criminal activity area parking lots for the US otherwise crime will not stop for the people in the US and privacy will keep being invaded as long there is crime.