Police Use Of Body Cameras

People lie. Whether the cause is intentional or accidental, the truth will almost always be obscured. Videos, on the other hand, cannot tell lies. Unless manually altered, what is seen is known to be the truth. And so, considering the elements of protecting officers, protecting the public, and boosting the legal system’s efficiency, when it comes to the police force’s use of body cameras, the benefits clearly expel any controversy.

Ferguson, a town whose name was echoed throughout the U.S. over the last two years, triggered a clash between the public and the police. After a police officer shot and killed an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, a gap began to form between the public and those meant to watch over them. What has come into question

Body cameras help better the reputation of the police by weeding out the bad cops. In NY, the Civilian Complaint Review Board reported that over an eighteen-month survey on police and body cameras, responsibility for all of the Board’s incidents fell under only 14% of the officers, and 80% of the complaints logged under the board fell under only 5% of the officers. (15-1) This evidence would allow the Board to relieve the problem directly by confronting the officers that caused the problems. (15-1) This also proves to the public that most police officers’ goals are to keep them safe, and that only a very small amount of officers have presented misconduct. This lessens the strain on officers and improves their reputation with the public. (15-1-derived) Equally important, with almost 50,000 yearly assaults on officers, (9-4) is the factor that body cameras improve the public’s behavior towards the police. Stated by Tony Farrar, Chief of the Rialto, CA Police, “We will tell them, ‘Just so you know, you’re being recorded,’ and that tends to de-escalate some situations”. (11-1) Though, body cameras have shown to civilize the public in more than just some situations. According to the Aberdeen study, out of the 62 officers that were assaulted, only one was an officer equipped with a camera. (MMM-10) Along with that, with the new presence of

With body cameras, law enforcement is able to utilize strong video evidence in more and more cases. (13-1-police say,ect.,...)(11-1) By having video footage of an event that happened, police wouldn’t have to write reports based solely on their memories, which, like all humans’, aren 't very credible. This means that police reports that utilized body cameras would be much more detailed and honest than those that didn’t. (16-1) Video is also a very solid form of evidence, allowing it to resolve cases efficiently. In fact, the CCRB reported that video evidence has substantiated around 50% of its force allegations. (15-1) Due to the substantialness of video evidence, body-worn camera cases are much less likely to go to trial. One of the best examples of this is with Renfrewshire, where cases involving cameras were 70 to 80% less likely than other cases to end in a trial. (MMM-12) Aside from just efficiently resolving court cases, body cameras save the police departments enormous amounts of money. For instance, it costs around $20,000 to handle one complaint against a police officer (22-10), and the Rialto report noted that body camera wearing officers draw in 88% less complaints than officers who do not wear body cameras. (11-2) Because the city of Rialto claimed to have avoided around 21 complaints, it