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Essays on technology in the police
The effect of technology in a policing environment
Essays on technology in the police
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Within recent years there has been much controversy encompassing police officers and regardless of whether they ought to wear body cameras to document all their daily activities. While the utilization of body cameras may appear to invade the public or police privacy, police should wear body cameras. By wearing body cameras, they could enhance people's perspective of police by demonstrating their compassion, protect the public from police misconduct and protect law enforcement from dealing with false allegations that can discredit their reputation. Additionally, it can help to provide evidence when individuals may not be able to, which are all vital parts of policing. Police body cameras are an indispensable device for cops and our communities …show more content…
since they proposition unquestionable proof in court, confirms officers are upholding the law, and increase general well-being and adequacy of officers. In the article "Cops and body-worn cameras: lessons gained from Phoenix's organization of body-worn cameras" the Phoenix law enforcement specified that their officers wear body cameras. The results indicated "BWCs appear to have produced greater arrest activity, and substantial decreases in aggressions against officers (23 percent decrease) when contrasted with officers in a correlation squad zone that did not have cameras (10 percent increase)" (Elliot, and Kurtenbach, 2015, pg. 3). That is a significant drop in protests against officers, now think how immense the numbers would be in other enormous cities like New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, or Houston. There are more positive outcomes from the utilization of body-worn cameras like recordings can be utilized as training aids for future cops, and presumably, the most critical issue, that the videos protect the truth.
The usage of old footages can be crucial to new cops since it can show them how to manage various circumstances effectively that way they don't put their profession at risk or the lives of their accomplices in danger. Everybody realizes that there are always three sides to a story: what one individual says happens, what the other individual says happened, and what happened. With the execution of body-worn cameras, it would eliminate, he said she said argument and offer an honest and genuine account of events in question. South Carolina Representative Gerald Malloy states in an article that "body cameras protect police, protects the general population and protects the truth." Also, he goes on to say, "from their experience, I know citizen complaints have gone down, utilization of force has gone down, and the footage offers great apparatuses to training" (Williams, 2015, pg. 1). With state government officials concurring with results of body-worn cameras they can find a way to actualizing them in their …show more content…
states. As Rich Williams discusses in his article Police body cams: is a video worth more than a thousand words?”, He brought up how much citizen dissensions go down and how there is potential to go keep decreasing. Being equipped with body cameras is the means to help protect the cops themselves and the public. There is the capacity to invalidate allegations of brutality when no type of viciousness has occurred. As mentioned in the same article "Malloy, in the wake of observing nationwide challenges over disputable deaths in police encounters knew the open deliberation needed to swing from the street to the Statehouse." We must change the way of life in policing. We realize that civilians and officers die in these encounters, and we understand that the requirements need resolving, and these recordings can enable us (2015, pg. 1). The goal is that general society is to be protected by utilizing the footage to guarantee cops are not exceeding their boundaries consistently. Everybody has heard about the disputable cases where, allegedly that cops might have mishandled their power, with the Michael Dark colored case from Ferguson, Missouri being one of the latest incidents with a considerable amount of media scope. The result of the accusation was Officer Darren Wilson charges was dropped. Even though the case was over, many individuals were angry with the result. One thing that could have enhanced this decision dramatically is if the officer was wearing a body camera. On the off chance that Officer Darren Wilson was wearing body camera the video would have demonstrated everything that let up to the situation in question and what occurred after. With that snippet of data, regardless of whether it showed his honesty or blame, it would have made the result of the trial even more tolerating. The reasoning is, everybody would have been able to perceive what indeed happened with no predisposition, that is the reason body-worn cameras convey an essential thing to the table, and that will be that it protects the truth. The public's perspective of cops has undoubtedly declined through the years, to enhance this the officers ought to be outfitted with body cameras to display the positive that cops perform, not only the terrible preferably, exhibiting their compassion while policing.
The perspective of police has gone down given all the negative attention they have received as of late. Some people believed that there is a great deal of division between the two, and uniting the law enforcement and the public will change that perception. “Equipping a body camera gives the people the ability to realize the greatness that cops do (Arnett, 2015).” The unfortunate truth is that there have been cases, which have made all police officers appeared awful, while that is not the situation. There are many occasions that cops make an extraordinary effort to help individuals, for example, when two cops chose to step up and assist a father that was down on his luck with three small kids and no car seats. "Perceiving the family was down on their luck, Gower and Hawkins chose to purchase the young girls; ages one, three, and four; car seats as opposed to ticketing the father. "Giving him three tickets, it would not do any good," Gower told KVUE. "Those children were all the while must be driven some place, some way or another with no car seats." Said Hawkins: "We just ventured off to the side and said we have to make the best choice and get this family some car seats." (Blossom, 2015 section 4) These are the
occurrences that the general population does not observe, and indeed it gets overlooked when the negative occurs these encouraging situations do not get remembered. Body cameras can convey these events to the spotlight and demonstrate the compassion of policing, more regularly while still portraying the crucial role that is required. Although the thought of the law enforcement using cameras seems to be a concern over violating a person's privacy, there is a more significant struggle to protect the police and public in environments that can turn violent. While officers are cameras are recording; it is no different than someone else that documents them and post it on social media; while on the job the people, in general, it is no different than any store, eatery, or even a traffic light documenting their day to day activities. The insight of this is, there is no more of an invasion of privacy that we perceived on a day to day basis. Recordings are happening while driving, heading off to the supermarket, or even having dinner and it does not seem to be an issue, so body cameras are no more of a privacy violation than anything else that police body cameras would encounter daily. There are repeatedly going to be positives and negatives to any and all circumstances, and that is even genuine when taking a gander at the issue concerning whether cops ought to wear body cameras. Many individuals end up noticeably worried about the violation of privacy, however, while considering the significance of displaying compassion of policing, offering evidence when an individual may be unable to, and being able to protect the officers and additionally the people, in general, these critical components all exceed that concern. With the ability to protect the public and officers while having a responsibility too, this is an excellent helping factor in the ability for police to be more efficient and the ultimate objective of eliminating wrongdoing by way of the utilization of body cameras. Like I articulated before, body cameras protect the truth. It could save the city money by not paying for a judge, legal advisors, jurors, and whatever staff that needs to be there for a trial since the footage from the camera will give an incontestable proof if something happened or not; so most cases won't have to go to trial. In the wake of analyzing numerous facts, it is safe to say that implementing the utilization of body cameras in police departments all over the nation would undoubtedly set the general population at ease. If we, as a community, select to reject the considerable thought of cops wearing body cameras there will consistently be a violated connection between law enforcement and the public.
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
To conclude, I learned many things on my ride along, but the thing that I still think about now is how police officers just do their job. The media gives police officers’ a bad name and tell the public about the bad things that they do. The media does not show what the officers do to protect the community or how they risk their lives in order to bring safety to the community. My ride along was a great experience and I am glad that I had the chance to ride along with Officer Ernesti.
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.
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.
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
The struggle for more transparency in policing is an issue that has been waging on for years unchecked, but with necessary body cameras this problem will be able to be solved. With the use of body cameras, police procedure can become public knowledge. This will help prevent things like the Ferguson riots that took place after the decision to not indict officer Darren Wilson. Some people argue that the use of these body cameras could violate privacy laws because “Unlike previous forms of surveillance, body-cameras can enter private spaces more easily, and can focus on individuals more effectively” (Freund 95). However, this issue can be easily solved as unlike dash cameras, which are automatic, the body cameras need to be switched on. This allows the officer to use their discretion on when to actively record. This information can repair the already damaged trust between the police and the public. Use of cameras would also decrease the rate at which police receive complaints. According to Brucato “For the police, accountability offers the opportunity to exonerate themselves and their agencies from false complaints” (457). All the frivolous complaints and lawsuits that using a body camera prevents also serves a purpose to save money of the police department. In today 's society people only see the police incidents being recorded through the use of cellphone filmed
Many numerous police officers have been given body cameras over the last few months. Due to this, there have been videos that were made public which caused an outcry throughout the country. With the increase in body cameras over the country, there has been many setbacks and potential benefits that
Only recently has there been an increased amount of police involvement with citizens all over the media because of the past years fatal police encounters with unarmed black men in New York City, Ferguson, Mo., Baltimore and other parts of the U.S. Most of it has been either feeding the war on cops theory or shedding light to the real injustices dealt by police officers. The reality of the issue is that there 's too many opinions and not enough facts to back up either notion of whether the body cameras work or not due to the fact of how recent the issue is. Time is a large factor in any study dealing with long term effects for what is being researched. There has only been a handful of studies made to combat the real issues present in our society today, but there is not enough time to provide the people today the long term effects of police worn body cameras.(7 Findings from First-ever Study on Body
Police shootings occur all over the world but are a huge problem within the United States. We continue to hear more and more about them. These shootings are making headlines. Front page news it seems almost weekly. All the shootings go one of two ways. Either a Police Officer has been shot or a Police Officer has shot a citizen, but either way the final result is death. Whether an Officer has been shot or an Officer has shot someone these cases seem to be related to one thing, fear. People in today’s society feel as though they can’t trust Police Officers as they are there to hurt and kill them. And Police Officers feel as though they are in danger of doing their everyday duties because people see them as the “bad guys” and want to hurt or kill them. Yes, police brutality and racism still exist, but not all cops are bad. Yes there are still bad citizens in this world that want to kill and harm others, but not all citizens are bad. People seem to react to these shootings by rioting quickly after a police officer has shot and killed someone without
According to interviewed police officers, once members of the public were notified that they were being filmed, “even drunk or agitated people tended to become more polite.” As a result of these behavioral changes, “police departments saw a nearly 90 percent decrease in complaints against officers since body cameras have been introduced into the communities.” The use of body cameras should be able to reduce the complaints and potentially help to nourish a culture of more respectful interactions between police and the public. “Body cameras should, in turn, be expected to lead to greater public engagement with police officers and ultimately to improved public safety.” Complaints of police misconduct usually begin with a written or oral statement by a person claiming that one or more officers engaged in conduct that breaches the law or policies of the department. “Officers and other witnesses then give their own statements of the incidence, video footage, unlike the memory of a human being, does not become less accurate over time.” In addition, many complaints are currently resolved only by making a credibility determination between the complainant and one or more of the officers involved. “By objectively recording events as they transpire, body cameras could help investigators make even more accurate findings.” These finding can help maintain the integrity of the officer being accused and the police
With advanced body camera machinery such as GoPro growing more influential in today's civilization, controversy has emerged over whether law enforcement officers should be required to utilize body cameras or not, so that each and every movement is recorded and displayed while on duty. Police should be able to have these cameras on their attire at all times, no matter where they go as long as they are in duty. This allows officers to documentate everything and, unlike human beings, the cameras do not have the ability to lie so it will protect and safeguard any incorrect allegations. This type of technology should be dispersed to police stations in every single state because as society advances progressively more into