"Long before body cameras were introduced to the public and found themselves in mainstream conversations about police reform, they were first peddled to police departments by tech companies and major corporations.
With body cameras, law enforcement agencies could expand their surveillance capacity, mitigate police brutality lawsuits, create “highly controllable evidence” against the largely poor, largely Black citizens of whom police often seek to capture footage, and quell social unrest by creating “comprehensive digital archives” of attendees at protests for social change"
“It was the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, that would forever change the public conversation around police accountability and allow body cameras to take center stage. Almost immediately, body cameras were no longer being pitched behind closed doors to police departments, but were rather presented to the public as an invaluable tool for police “reform” and increased “transparency.””
I’m curious about the “highly controllable evidence” part. Perhaps this conversation isn’t attainable without getting into vast generalizations, however, in my experience officers generally activate their cameras when they respond to a crime and don’t turn them off until they are no longer investigating the crime. This is generally when the defendant has already been interviewed and is custody in a police vehicle. If there are subsequent interviews, they turn back on their cameras.
I know my experience is not universal, but body cameras seem to be a great way to maintain transparency in investigations since defendants and prosecutors will both have video/audio of the investigation.
In another comment I posted a link to another study that shows police does not provide footage from most of police shootings. Yes, most of the time the camera is recording but most of the time only police can see the footage. That’s what they mean by "highly controllable evidence”. When it exonerates the officer they give to the TV stations in a matter of hours. When it doesn’t they hide it and you have to fight them in courts for years to see it.
Anyone can record in public at any time anyway. There’s no reason to not have police body cams even if they aren’t as effective as they should be. The police will always have body cameras if they want them, and they don’t want them. If the police don’t want to wear them, that tells me that they probably should even if we need to work on getting public access to the footage.
With body cameras, law enforcement agencies could expand their surveillance capacity, mitigate police brutality lawsuits, create “highly controllable evidence” against the largely poor, largely Black citizens of whom police often seek to capture footage, and quell social unrest by creating “comprehensive digital archives” of attendees at protests for social change"
Did you read this part? It pretty much contradicts everything you said.
Yes, I read it but I don’t see any evidence to think that their stance is correct. Just because somebody writes something doesn’t mean it is correct or even accurate. There’s no citation for anything except one study demonstrating that the footage is not used to convict police officers very often, which is the real problem.
“Across these evaluations, researchers looked at a range of outcomes, including use of force, citizen complaints, arrests, and assaults on officers. Four of the body-worn camera programs evaluated were found to have no, limited, or even negative effects.”
“Prosecutors, however, rarely bring cases against the police (Skolnick & Fyfe, 1993), and it remains to be
seen whether this will change much as a result of BWCs. In their study of the use of BWCs in the courts,
Merola et al. (2016) found that nearly all (93.0%) responding prosecutors’ offices in jurisdictions that
use BWCs use them primarily to prosecute citizens. Not surprisingly, 80.0% of responding prosecutors
in Merola et al.’s survey support BWC use by the police, and 63.0% feel cameras will assist prosecutors
more than defense attorneys”
I know that probably no amount of research and evidence will change your mind but those are pretty easy to find so I just leave it here for other people to see.
I can’t tell if you are agreeing with me or not. I just said the real problem is that it’s not used to prosecute police officers enough. Are you disagreeing with me citing one study that said four programs potentially had some negative outcome?
If body cameras are good for police, why do police not want to wear them?
Ok, this part may not be easy to understand. There were looking at use of force, citizen complaints, arrests and assaults on officers. The theory is that thanks to the use of body cams there will be less cases of use of force, less citizen complaints and less assaults on officers. The study says that in some of the evaluated body cam programs they found that those statistics didn’t change or that they got more cases of use of force, citizen complaints and so on. Basically, it’s not clear if the cameras help reduce police violence at all.
The second part (which you ignored) says that the cameras are actually used mostly to prosecute citizens, not police. Basically, thanks to the cameras police can easily prove offenses and convict people. Just like the first article said, police us body cams to surveil and prosecute people. Prosecutors like cameras because they make their job easier. You can deduct from this that police also likes cameras. Your claim that “police does not want to wear cameras” is baseless. There’s probably some opposition at first but once they et used to them it’s just another tool used to oppress people.
Body cams aren’t the solution, but they do help a lot. When cops have zero oversight, they commit way more atrocities, on average.
You should read this: https://prismreports.org/2024/07/16/complex-troubling-history-police-body-cameras/
"Long before body cameras were introduced to the public and found themselves in mainstream conversations about police reform, they were first peddled to police departments by tech companies and major corporations.
With body cameras, law enforcement agencies could expand their surveillance capacity, mitigate police brutality lawsuits, create “highly controllable evidence” against the largely poor, largely Black citizens of whom police often seek to capture footage, and quell social unrest by creating “comprehensive digital archives” of attendees at protests for social change"
“It was the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, that would forever change the public conversation around police accountability and allow body cameras to take center stage. Almost immediately, body cameras were no longer being pitched behind closed doors to police departments, but were rather presented to the public as an invaluable tool for police “reform” and increased “transparency.””
I’m curious about the “highly controllable evidence” part. Perhaps this conversation isn’t attainable without getting into vast generalizations, however, in my experience officers generally activate their cameras when they respond to a crime and don’t turn them off until they are no longer investigating the crime. This is generally when the defendant has already been interviewed and is custody in a police vehicle. If there are subsequent interviews, they turn back on their cameras.
I know my experience is not universal, but body cameras seem to be a great way to maintain transparency in investigations since defendants and prosecutors will both have video/audio of the investigation.
In another comment I posted a link to another study that shows police does not provide footage from most of police shootings. Yes, most of the time the camera is recording but most of the time only police can see the footage. That’s what they mean by "highly controllable evidence”. When it exonerates the officer they give to the TV stations in a matter of hours. When it doesn’t they hide it and you have to fight them in courts for years to see it.
Anyone can record in public at any time anyway. There’s no reason to not have police body cams even if they aren’t as effective as they should be. The police will always have body cameras if they want them, and they don’t want them. If the police don’t want to wear them, that tells me that they probably should even if we need to work on getting public access to the footage.
Did you read this part? It pretty much contradicts everything you said.
Yes, I read it but I don’t see any evidence to think that their stance is correct. Just because somebody writes something doesn’t mean it is correct or even accurate. There’s no citation for anything except one study demonstrating that the footage is not used to convict police officers very often, which is the real problem.
https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/research-body-worn-cameras-and-law-enforcement
“Across these evaluations, researchers looked at a range of outcomes, including use of force, citizen complaints, arrests, and assaults on officers. Four of the body-worn camera programs evaluated were found to have no, limited, or even negative effects.”
https://cebcp.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/BWCpaperLumetal.pdf
“Prosecutors, however, rarely bring cases against the police (Skolnick & Fyfe, 1993), and it remains to be seen whether this will change much as a result of BWCs. In their study of the use of BWCs in the courts, Merola et al. (2016) found that nearly all (93.0%) responding prosecutors’ offices in jurisdictions that use BWCs use them primarily to prosecute citizens. Not surprisingly, 80.0% of responding prosecutors in Merola et al.’s survey support BWC use by the police, and 63.0% feel cameras will assist prosecutors more than defense attorneys”
I know that probably no amount of research and evidence will change your mind but those are pretty easy to find so I just leave it here for other people to see.
I can’t tell if you are agreeing with me or not. I just said the real problem is that it’s not used to prosecute police officers enough. Are you disagreeing with me citing one study that said four programs potentially had some negative outcome?
If body cameras are good for police, why do police not want to wear them?
Ok, this part may not be easy to understand. There were looking at use of force, citizen complaints, arrests and assaults on officers. The theory is that thanks to the use of body cams there will be less cases of use of force, less citizen complaints and less assaults on officers. The study says that in some of the evaluated body cam programs they found that those statistics didn’t change or that they got more cases of use of force, citizen complaints and so on. Basically, it’s not clear if the cameras help reduce police violence at all.
The second part (which you ignored) says that the cameras are actually used mostly to prosecute citizens, not police. Basically, thanks to the cameras police can easily prove offenses and convict people. Just like the first article said, police us body cams to surveil and prosecute people. Prosecutors like cameras because they make their job easier. You can deduct from this that police also likes cameras. Your claim that “police does not want to wear cameras” is baseless. There’s probably some opposition at first but once they et used to them it’s just another tool used to oppress people.