Should Police Officers Wear Body Cameras Essay

Many would think that having police officers wear these body cameras do not pose much of an advantage for law enforcement, but just as it has its advantages and disadvantages for the public, it also poses them for police officers also. A similarity that the public and police officers share when it comes to these body cameras is that it holds everyone accountable. Since there is so much pressure placed on the police officer due to outsider recordings and the negative connotation, the usage of the body cameras provides a sense of relief because it can show both sides of the interaction. Another upside to these body cameras comes from a study performed by the Rialto, CA police department which found that “the cameras led to an 87.5 percent decrease

There are quite a few disadvantages of the body cameras, one issue with these body cameras is that the police officers must make sure to physically turn on the camera when they leave their patrol car. In an instance where an officer must quickly leave their patrol car in order to stop the civilian they may forget to turn on the camera. Especially because their main focus is handling the issue at hand, they are human and make mistakes. If they forget to turn on a camera it could result in missing viable information. Besides potentially forgetting to turn on the camera, as with every other form of technology there is also the possibility that there could be a technological issue which may also result in missing video. Budgets seem to be an issue all throughout the United States, which results in cuts in other areas, these body cameras are pretty costly also. In 2014 “the Fullerton City Council approved the purchase of the body cameras from TASER International, costing $650,354 for 140 cameras” (Myers, 2014). On top of purchasing the cameras there is also the cost for maintenance and data storage. A report from the Police Executive Research Forum also goes to say that “running 900 cameras would cost a municipal government $2 million a year, mainly for storage of the audio and videos” (Linskey,