The Pros And Cons Of Police Body Cameras

Police body cameras were intended to decrease police complaints and decrease the amount of unnecessary force but, the cameras have some defects. Defects that can make the cameras be considered useless and not worth the money and time. These cameras were tested in various departments to understand the positive and negative effects of the cameras. Do body cameras change how the police interact with the public?

On September 17, 2015, County Executive Kevin Kamenetz introduced a new body camera program which implemented 1,435 cameras to the Baltimore County Police Department officers (Hardgrove 1). The first 150 body cameras were tested and found very interesting results. The cameras were tested to see if they would improve public safety, reduce

These body cameras along with any other cameras come with a price, these advanced police body cameras cost $399-$599 per unit (Erstad 3). Most police departments don't have enough money to buy all these cameras for their officers, so the question is where would this money come from? The money would have to come from the community or the government which would lead to the raise of taxes. Or for example the U.S. Department of Justice provided $20 million in grants for New York City, Ferguson, Baltimore, and other police departments to use and train with these body cameras (Kelsh 1). The money was part of President Obama’s plan to spend $75 million to buy 50,000 body cameras for police departments (Kelsh 1). These cameras have been proven to help the community with the cost. The police body cameras led to an 87.5 decrease in officer complaints and a 59 percent reduction in use of force (Erstad 2). Which means the police officers had to use less force making their job more efficient. Additional research found that officers wearing cameras gave 23.1% more citations for ordinance violations than the officers who did not wear body cameras (Kelsh