Freeze-frame In Houston, Texas alone there are around one hundred stoplights. Recently, a law has been drafted to place cameras on the stoplights and Houston and the surrounding suburbs. These "red-light cameras" or RLCs as they are called automatically take a picture of a vehicle breaking the law by running the stoplight and sends the owner a seventy-five dollar ticket. This method of ticketing is incredibly inefficient and should be removed. The camera system fails to notify the recipients of the tickets in a fair amount of time, does not take into account if the owner is driving, and according to the people of Houston should not even be in place. The current system that the red-light cameras are under is flawed and should be removed completely. No one likes getting a ticket for running a stoplight, but what is even worse is getting a delayed ticket. If the ticket is delayed long enough, the cost of the ticket rises at least one hundred dollars in order to cover the collection agency fee. Wait any longer and you might receive another letter informing you to "pay or have the debt reported to a credit agency".(George) This situation happened to an unfortunate Houstonian who moved out of state in 2007. Scott Robinson moved from Houston to Cincinnati in 2007. Before leaving, Mr. Robinson sold his Hyundai Santa Fe to a used car dealer in Rosenberg, Texas. Due to clerical errors at the dealer, Scott's car was sold with his license plates still attached to the vehicle. The new owner of the vehicle ran a stoplight and when the license plate was read, Mr. Robinson's information was pulled up. When he finally received his ticket, it was too late for him to protest the charges even when providing proof of sale for the vehicle.(Geor... ... middle of paper ... ...ving an officer stationed would also decrease the response times to accidents that occur in intersections. Aside from that, a removal of the cameras will reduce the number of rear end collisions caused by the snap decisions the lights impose on drivers. Works Cited George, Cindy, Mrs. "Houston’s Red-light Cameras Gone, but Fines and Headaches Aren’t." The Houston Chronicle. N.p., 16 May 2012. Web. 18 Nov. 2013. Johnson, Laurie. "Red Light Camera Controversy Continues." Houston Public Media. N.p., 30 Nov. 2010. Web. 19 Nov. 2013. Miller, Joshua R. "Texas City Tosses Petition to Shutter Red Light Cameras." Fox News. FOX News Network, 12 June 2013. Web. 19 Nov. 2013. "The Arguments Against Red Light Cameras - St Petersburg, FL Red Light Cameras." The Arguments Against Red Light Cameras - St Petersburg, FL Red Light Cameras. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Dec. 2013.
"Update: Crime and Race." Issues & Controversies On File: n. pag. Issues & Controversies. Facts On File News Services, 25 May 2007. Web. 5 Nov. 2013.
There needs to be an estimate of the cost and technical expertise needed to maintain the body cameras. TPD and city law-makers would also have to consider policy that would need to be in place in case the officers’ equipment malfunctions or is rendered ineffectual in some manner. For this reason, there needs to be an understanding among all stakeholders that a change in the policy for body cameras will not alleviate all possibility of police misconduct or be a catchall for false allegation against officers by citizens of police
GUN CONTROL: Our Streets Are Running Red Tom Coker English IA November 18, 1997 6:35 p.m. : William Wallace had a very stressful day at work and is now driving home. As he is travelling along the I-10 freeway in Los Angeles, he suddenly comes to a complete stop. Gridlock traffic is not an unusual sight for any motorist that travels on this freeway, and William decides to exit the freeway in order to escape the madness. He exits on the next off ramp and comes to a red light at a busy intersection. As he patiently waits for the stoplight to change illumination he thinks about his wife and his two beautiful daughters. Suddenly the driver's side window is shattered and glass disperses throughout the interior of the car. William looks over to find a brick resting on the passenger seat next to him. A hooded man runs up to the side of his car and violently opens the door. The man points a gun and shouts at William to get out before he gets hurt. As William struggles to unbuckle his seatbelt, the man hits him against the side of his head with the pistol. William is then forcefully pulled out of the car and thrown onto the asphalt in a manner of rage. William looks over and sees a man step out of the car behind him pointing a 9mm pistol with one hand and holding a police badge in the other hand. The off duty officer shouts for William's attacker to stop. The hooded man panics and opens fire on the officer. William watches the officer take three bullets to his chest and fall to the ground. The hooded man then jumps into William's car, slams on the accelerator and races straight into the busy intersection. The next sound that William hears is burning rubber, crushing metal to metal, and shattering glass. Willia...
A way to deal with this problem seems to be body cameras. According to Jay Stanley, writer of “Police Body-Mounted Cameras: With Right Policies in Place, a Win For All” states that body cameras are “small, pager-sized cameras that clip on to an officer 's uniform or are worn as a headset, and record audio and video of the officer 's interactions with the public.”. However, having these new cameras come with privacy and money issues. With 25% of all agencies in the nation already using them and 80% looking into them (pg. 1). So, the two main issues with body cameras have to be addressed before moving
The intent of this study is to determine the effects between the independent variable of law enforcement professionals wearing body-cameras and the dependent variable of civilian’s willingness to talk to the police. The research questions that the data collected intends to answer are: Do civilians that come in contact with police deterred from talking to them about relevant information regarding a crime when there is a camera on the officer? What effects do police body-cameras have beyond accountability of law enforcement professionals? Will body-cameras damage communication between civilians and law enforcement that could result in a decrease in willingness to report crimes thus increasing crime itself?
Immigrant Profiling by Local Law Enforcement. (2010, May 3). Retrieved Month Day, Year, from Issues & Controversies database
Body cameras are now widely used by police departments in the United States for safety measures. It would not be a bad idea if The Department of Correction would make it mandatory for all correctional officers to wear body cameras during their shift. Each state here in the U.S. is responsible for maintaining a prison budget, especially when the state is facing severe budget cuts due to economic struggles and drops in tax revenues (Clear et al, 2013). With that being said, proposing body cameras for correctional officers will require a lot of my money, and it will be a challenge to come of up with the funds. The Houston Police Department has requested for body cameras for over three year now and the city understands how critical it is for officers, especially after seeing numerous police use of force and shootings all across the U.S. Houston Police officers are unequipped when it comes to devices that could prevent criminal and civil litigations. HPD Chief Charles McClelland requested City Hall for $8 million to equip 3,500 police officers with small body cameras to record encounters between law enforcement and citizens as a way of improving accountability and transparency; furthermore, to reduce use of force incidents and citizen complaints (Kuffner, 2014). The request made by the Chief has been pending for over three years due to lack of funding. The estimate cost for the device per officer is approximately $2,500. Body cameras will also prevent officers from having fraudulent complaints filed against them. Houston Mayor Anise Parker’s administration stated they are having trouble finding the money to pay for the Chief’s request (Kuffner,
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:
There are multiple reasons why the stop and frisk law essentially needs to be amended or abolished. It has created a negative tension in areas of minority and low income between police officers and the very people they are trying to protect. The law has actually enhanced the tensions. The idea behind this originally began with the thought that if the law enforcement could prevent a crime from happening, all tactics would be worth it. The privileges of police power, arrests, and the use of their ‘on the street’ stopping and frisking is hard to condense, particularly ...
In this article, the rhetor Jim Walsh reveals and educates the importance of the body -camera. His audience consists of the AZ Central viewers and the Arizona Republic, and Police departments all over the country. Police-body cameras are placed to ensure people’s safety and their justice. A national debate that is
“Most governments using tickets cameras send out tickets via first class mail. There is no guarantee that the accused motorists will even receive the ticket. If motorist fail to pay, it is assumed that they did it o n purpose, and a warrant may be issued for their arrest.”
As we cruised around the community, he pointed out countless minor traffic violations, both moving and non-moving, but opted not to make any stops. At this point he stated his main concern was to spot any impaired drivers and get them off the road. Eventually, as we came up behind an older civic (the Civic had a broken brake light) on Centreville Road, the officer stated that he detected the scent of marijuana coming from the Civic. The driver of the Civic noticed Crutchman’s police cruiser behind him and dropped his speed to 5 mph under the posted limit. Officer Crutchman began tailing the vehicle which immediately turned off on the next available road. We proceeded to follow the Civic for a couple of miles. I could tell that Officer Crutchman wanted to make the stop, and I inquired why he hadn’t done so already on account of the Civic’s faulty brake light. He responded that he is cautious about making such stops because he does not want a “new law named after him” on account of the controversy surrounding pretextual stops. It is possible that this careful attitude has developed as a result of the rising public outcry against police and
Obviously even five miles per hour over the speed limit is still speeding, but what would bring two cops to pull over a car traveling at a speed that almost everyone drives? Statistics from New York City’s Police Department have shown that the number of tickets for miniscule offenses is on the rise, and even though it is illegal for a city to set a formal quota for police to meet, many people believe it is still a common practice to have “under the table” quotas. According to Compstat, a crime analysis and police management process developed by the New York City Police Department, officers wrote 912,414 parking tickets between January 1 and May 11 of this year, as compared to 877,443 parking tickets during the same period last year, which represents an increase of 3.9%. A spokesman for the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, Al O’Leary, said, “The apparent increase in summonses (in New York City) was fueled by quotas. You can call them goals or targets or management productivity levels, but in a practical world, those are quotas" (Mauldin).
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: do the benefits of law enforcement security cameras outweigh the negative side to it? Although the invasion of privacy is a serious argument against law enforcement cameras, 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.
The topic I picked for our community project was traffic lights. In a community, people need stop signs and traffic lights to slow down drivers from going to fast. If there were no traffic lights or stop signs, people’s lives would be in danger from divers going too fast.