Body Cameras: The Future Of The Criminal Justice System

An issue that is important to everyone’s future that is debatable would be the criminal justice system. The criminal justice system has been in existing for hundreds of years and was built to lower crime and protects the people. A few reasons this issue is debatable in today’s society is because of the recent attack of civilians by police officers and the fact that some of the officers are getting off with little to no charges. People are supposed to trust the criminal justice system not fear it, so with the increasing number of incidents, most are wondering what are ways to decrease the changes of attacks happening again in the future. Some are all for the thought of police officers wearing body cameras, but other aren’t sure that is the

Mr. Franklin was an officer for 34-years working at Maryland State and Baltimore Police Department as a commander of training and a narcotics officer overseeing 17 drug task forces. Now he works as the executive director of Law Enforcement against Prohibition, an organization whose purpose is to end the war on drugs (Huff Post). In this article Mr. Franklin talks about how body camera would be beneficial for the police and for the communities they work in. When new police recruits are trained they are trained to act as if their every move is being record because people act better when they thing they are being recorded (Franklin). If officers act as if their constantly being recorded then they will think before acting to ensure they are following procedures. To get the complete picture of an interaction body cameras are more efficient than dashcam or written reports in getting the whole story (Franklin). With dashcams you can only see in front of the car, so if there is a chase you miss everything that takes place on the chase, with written reports you get a he says, she says store. Body cameras are on the officer’s person so you see what they see, hear what they hear and get a better understanding of the incident. Racial profiling and unconstitutional searches has risen since war on drug started to become a serious issue but trust in the police has decreased (Franklin). Being able to trust the people who are supposed to protect and keep the community safe is extremely important. People shouldn’t have to worry that because of their race they will get stop or accused of something they may not have done. Body cameras can help restore people trust in the police departments by showing that. Some officers are falsely accused of abuse and some aren’t punished for abusing their power, but with body cameras it will be apparent