Bodycams don't always work. Here's a different solution to police violence (original) (raw)
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Lights, Camera, Redaction... Police Body-Worn Cameras: Autonomy, Discretion and Accountability
Body-worn cameras are the modern equivalent of the police notebook. (Queensland Police Minister, cited in Doorley 2014) The sun beats down on a hot and sticky afternoon in Oklahoma City, September 2015. A police officer fitted with a body-worn camera is giving chase to a man who has allegedly robbed a general store armed with a knife. The assailant runs into dense grassland and falls to the ground. The pursuing officer incapacitates him with a Taser, following which another officer kneels on him and secures his hands behind his back with handcuffs. Several further officers arrive at the scene. As the man lies face down on the ground, " Turn it off, " comes the whispered order from the handcuffing officer. The assailant succumbs to a black leather boot to the neck as the officer wearing the camera turns his back on what's happening, thus preventing the scene from being fully captured. Audible cries are heard from the restrained assailant but the majority of the remaining footage is not of the altercation, but rather, the surrounding trees and grassland. 1
Police Body Cameras and Professional Responsibility: Public Records and Private Evidence
Extensive media coverage has focused attention on the disproportionate frequency and severity of police use of force against black communities in the United States. Video documentation captured by public officials and private citizens aided by the ubiquity of cell phones has made this violence inescapable, enabling conversations of system-wide problems within a mainstream context. Video documentation has been posed as a means of increasing transparency on the part of police and the district attorneys tasked with the decision of whether or not a police shooting requires the indictment of an officer. This documentation is also simultaneously posed as a check against the unmitigated authority of officer testimony, as a financial windfall for companies selling the technology, and as the ultimate exoneration for police officers attempting to justify their decisions in the field. These concurrent rhetorical registers operate in different domains and rarely overlap. The enormous amount of attention that has been focused on body-camera programs belies a techno-utopian impulse, an investment in a technological fix to complex and interlocking historical and socio-political realities. With this attention, funding has followed, pre-existing body-camera programs have been extended, and pilot programs have launched, presenting new challenges for police departments whose resources cannot meet the fiscal demands of a dramatic technological shift in a short period of time. Similarly, policies and laws regarding these devices themselves as well as the footage they capture have been sluggish to coalesce around coherent principles. This paper examines the emergent markets, policies, and laws governing the footage captured by police-worn body cameras in the United States and employs this footage as a way to reckon with complex ethical issues for information professionals.
Where Is the Goal Line? A Critical Look at Police Body‐Worn Camera Programs
Criminology & Public Policy, 2018
W hen police were provided with dash-cam or in-car recorders, it was argued they would be able to confirm the stories officers were telling and assist with prosecutions, while capturing improper police actions. Soon after their implementation, the in-car videos along with closed-circuit television (CCTV) were being used to justify police activities, played in court to help convict criminals, and reviewed for police misconduct. These videos have been lauded for confirming proper behavior in driving-under-the-influence (DUI) enforcement, sustaining comments and actions officers attributed to subjects, and showing the dangers of high-speed pursuits, among other activities. When the first generation of cameras was rolled out in the 1980s, there was no agreed-upon goal for them, some video was grainy, cameras were not always pointing in the right direction, they were not always working, they were not always turned on, and tapes were sometimes full or damaged (International Association of Chiefs of Police [IACP], 2004). Watching the videos was, for the most part, a boring exercise. The video evidence, however, was helpful in understanding the daily routines of officers (Meyer, 2014) and helped prosecute drunk drivers. Mothers Against Drunk Driving helped convince government and private funders to purchase the equipment for law enforcement. Quickly, fears and apprehension transformed into satisfaction and support, as the videos more often than not exonerated officer behavior and in many cases reduced citizen complaints. 1 In the late 1990s, there was an emphasis for agencies using the technology to develop a thorough
Journal of Crime and Problem Analysis, 2017
Globally, the use of body-worn cameras by policing agencies is rapidly increasing. A variety of scholarship on the impact of its use on police-civilian interactions and police accountability is also increasing. Using data from available empirical research, this paper will discuss the impact of police body- worn cameras on police-civilian interactions in controlled or unstable environments. Additionally, it will also examine the effect of body-worn cameras on police accountability in the context of visibility. Evidence from the review of available literature will show that there are numerous impacts on the behavior of both police and civilians due to the presence of police body-worn cameras. Further research by scholars is suggested due to the lack of available research on the use of body-worn cameras and its effect on police accountability and behavior of police and civilians in the Caribbean and Trinidad and Tobago.
The Impact of Police Video Recordings on Policing Strategies
Abstract This paper explores the impact video recordings have on policing strategies. Improved police legitimacy, professionalism, transparency, innovation and crime reduction efficiency were seen with body worn (BWC) and in-car camera policies. Privacy and mistrust were concerns for both police and the public. Closed circuit television (CCTV) assisted with crime reduction when coupled with human effort; however, controverting data revealed it only displaced crime. License plate readers (LPR) exponentially assisted in investigations. However, despite the perceived benefits, policies must be considered with clear goals that consistently consider the holistic human experience. Police video recordings have documented limitations and consequences that criminal justice administrators should consider as technology in the 21st century catches up with community mandates. The research examined BWC projects at Rialto, Vallejo, Phoenix and Mesa Police Departments. For instance, the data in the Rialto Police Department body-camera one year study revealed that use of force complaints dropped by 59% and citizen complaints by 88% compared to control samples. In addition, the effectiveness of CCTV and LPR’S were examined in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Wichita and Newark. In all of the studies - the human experience was an important factor in the effectiveness of video recordings of policing strategies. Without clear and direct policies, and if the police were given the latitude to activate, the data showed that they typically would not activate BWC from the outset of a citizen contact.
Policing on the Surveillance Frontier : Officer Perspectives of Body-Worn Cameras 1
2017
In the wake of a series of high-profile incidents involving the use of deadly force by officers, the public’s call for police oversight and accountability has reached a crescendo. As evidenced by tragic encounters in St. Louis, Baltimore, Staten Island and other cities nationwide, there is no question policing is increasingly challenging, particularly in communities where violent crime, unemployment and mistrust of