The Importance Of Police Cameras

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Chertoff, M. (2014, October 23). Police cameras need to protect privacy, too. USA Today, p. 7a. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Former secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Chertoff says in his newspaper article that video evidence would help the public and police in sorting out allegations that have come up in today’s world. He feels that video is a great record of facts that are unbiased. There is better evidence of crimes with video. Also, he states police would have greater accountability. He gives the example of one police officer’s recordings from a body camera would be a terabyte of data within a year. Times that by state and local police officers would mean a huge amount of data to be stored. Chertoff also discussed the …show more content…

He feels cameras are protection from police abuse to the public and protection from being accused of brutality to the police. Johnson sees it as a win-win for the ACLU, NAACP, and other Civil and Human Rights groups if they can input into camera policy. He says the cameras are not widely used in Massachusetts. According to Johnson even if all the legal issues and policies were in place it would take time and wouldn’t happen overnight. He lists problems and concerns from existing state law, legal procedures, and privacy issues are just the start. Storing and maintaining videos for criminal cases is a main concern to Johnson. He suggests that evidence video needs to have protection against tampering, altering, or being deleted. He brings up recording of someone without their permission or a court order could be considered wiretapping. Additional legal and privacy issues with recording inside a private residence or on a medical call and what should or shouldn’t be released to the public is more of Johnson’s …show more content…

He is in favor of police cameras. Stating in his article studies and their statistical numbers to support that everyone does behave better on camera. Knickerbocker gives the findings of a twelve month study done by the Task Force on 21st Century Policing on police body cameras. This study showed with body cameras there was a reduced need of force and reduced complaints against the police. He believes the increase of self-awareness of being recorded is a factor in the reduced need of force and complaints. Knickerbocker has a concern of police wearing body cameras and writing their reports on the interaction. These officers might alter reports based on what the video contents show. Police officers watch video before or after writing report, or watch it at all is his question. His conclusion was that no they wouldn’t due to others in the public and police having ability to video the same

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