Summary: The Importance Of Body Cameras

The most used and innovated technological gadget of recent times is the cell phone. The cell phone is more popular than ever in the United States amongst the population and they all come equipped with a camera; thus, it becomes even more important for officers to behave themselves because they can be recorded at any time. However, cell phone’s do not stop officers from abusing their powers because officers will try to prevent the public from recording them. According to Shaw, “even as courts recognize that video surveillance of on-duty officers is "unambiguously" protected by "basic first amendment principles," police have continued blatant attempts to prevent, suppress, or destroy video evidence” (2012:162). Despite officer attempting to

Body cameras have the potential to reduce public complaints against police, police use of force, and attrition of prosecutions due to lack of physical evidence (Drover and Ariel 2015:80). Body cameras are already in use in many different police agencies across the United States, mainly in response to the protests and demonstrations of the Black Lives Matter movement, which were inspired by the shooting of Michael Brown. In the same way that there was resistance by the police to having independent civilian review boards and cellular devices used against them, there has been resistance to the use of body cameras. However, despite the resistance about 32 percent of local police departments provided at least some officers with body-worn cameras and 6 percent provided at least some officers with weapon-attached cameras in 2013 (Reaves 2015). Body cameras are not currently helping reduce police brutality as well as they should. The first reason is that the police have resisted in using them. The second is that the police agency gives the officer that uses the body camera the ability to first look at the video then write a report, which compromises the effectiveness of body cameras. In addition, the officer can tamper with the body camera by either turning it off or obstructing its view. However, if the federal government develops stricter laws to enforce the proper use of body cameras, they can be a very effective tool in reducing police