BODY WORN- Cameras Essay PDF

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Martinez 1 Kendy Martinez Professor DiPrenda April 29, 2020 CRJ 201 170W

Body-Worn Cameras

Do you believe body-worn cameras could help in reducing excessive force by police officers? If so, do you agree with the deployment of BWCs? There is a huge need for body-worn cameras in today's society, and that is because a lot of cruelty is being done by police officers especially to people of color and low resources. Some police officers take advantage of their discretion, and sometimes make a lot of bad decisions. This is sometimes understandable because they only have a few seconds to think about what their next move is going to be. They don’t have hours to sit down and talk about what would be the best way to address a problem. Everything needs to be fast in order to be successful or at least to try to be. There is a lot of evidence that has shown that police officers with body-worn cameras have definitely reacted in a more professional way. And this is because when you know somebody is recording you, or that you are carrying a camera that is recording everything that you are doing, you try to do things more cautiously. This camera could be called in a way of being a deterrent for police officers not to use brutal force because they would be reminded at almost all times that they need to act in a good manner since they are going to be watched by their supervisors or a higher rank law enforcement officer. Throughout this essay there will be quite a lot of evidence to backup the

Martinez 2 ideas mentioned both in the introduction and the body paragraphs, body-worn cameras are needed not only for the safety of citizens but also for the safety of our police officers who are often brought down because of a few bad police officers, body-worn cameras could make a change in the criminal justice system by preventing excessive force and citizens accusing police officers of misconduct. Body-worn cameras were implemented around 2014 during the Obama presidency, and they mostly decided to include BWCs because of the consistent abuse to people of color. In the article, Research on Body-Worn Camera  the authors write, “The rapid adoption of BWCs in the United States has been propelled by highly publicized events in this decade involving (often) White police officers killing (often) unarmed Black individuals” (Lum et al.). This is certainly true BWCs were implemented because police officers were often killing Black people without a reason. For example, the case of Eric Garner who was a young black male and was chocked by a police officer until he couldn’t breathe, and before he died, he was telling the officer he couldn’t breathe multiple times but they didn’t pay attention to him and decided to use excessive force. This is only one of the many cases against Black people that show how much body-worn cameras are needed for the well being of all of us. One mistake that police officers often commit is not to listen to the person they are trying to apprehend, and because this person is trying to resist arrest since they didn’t do anything against the law to be apprehended the police officers believe this is just a way of them trying not to get arrested. So, the officers just see it as a way of preventing arrest and can’t really see more than just trying to arrest someone who has not done anything illegal or something that could put him/her in jail. A lot of people are dying in the hands of police officers without doing anything because it is not like the person had a gun or

Martinez 3 something to threaten the lives of these officers. He was completely unarmed and not harmful at all for them to use brutal force against this young man. Another reason why BWCs are good for police officers is the less amount of complaints against their persona. In the journal Post-experimental follow-ups—Fade-out versus persistence effects: The Rialto police body-worn camera experiment four years on t he authors quote The Rialto Experiment (Ariel et al., 2015) which says, “A dramatic reduction in complaints lodged against Rialto police officers, of > 90%, compared with the year prior to the experiment” (Sutherland et al.). This is one of many sources that say that after the integration of BWCs in police departments the rates of complaints have been reduced. And these complaints are being reduced because citizens are either being told that they are being recorded with a camera or they notice before the police officer tells them. After knowing they are being recorded they take a different position and try to be helpful with any questions the police officers might have. Also, the fact that they know they are being recorded makes them not want to go and complain about any officer or something that didn’t happen because the officers are going to have video back up to prove they never did whatever the citizen is accusing them for. Another source that explains how impactful it’s to have BWCs in regards to complaints, “In these studies, researchers have mostly found that officers wearing BWCs receive fewer reported complaints than do those that are not wearing the cameras” (Lum et al.). Based on this quote we can tell having a camera on you could really mark a difference because officers who are carrying and turning on their BWCs are having less complaints about them. And some citizens like to complain about officers when they feel for example that they are being fined or when the police officer is just doing their job, so they would get mad and think a way to solve this would be reporting the officer. They try to

Martinez 4 do this basically in revenge for a ticket which makes no sense, but the fact that these cameras are now recording every encounter makes them not to do this because they know they are just lying since they are mad at the officer. Another good aspect of body-worn cameras is how they deter you from doing the things you shouldn’t be doing as a police officer and to be more involved with the people. In T  he

body-worn camera perspective bias t he authors write, “BWCs are presented as a general deterrence stimulus that is likely to affect the behavior of those involved in a filmed police intervention because they encourage both self-awareness as well as some evaluation of the social desirability of the actions being carried out. ” (Boivin et al.). The presence of a camera has many impacts in many situations whether it is in a fight outside of a high school or the recording of a police encounter with a citizen. A camara could change anyone's actions because they know they are being recorded and whatever they try to say after the incident that is not true is going to be backed up by a video. Officers tend to be more rational when they are using the body-worn cameras because they fear that they could be fired if they do something wrong. And this somehow raises both the citizen and officer accountability whether they are making the right choice or not. Most of us try to act in the best way possible in front of a camera, sometimes not even being ourselves because we never know what they might do with that video. And this could be compared to a person in social media, where they only show what they want people to know, the beautiful and perfect but not the sad and ugly that might be hiding behind a profile. Another reason why officers agree with the idea of using BWCs is because it could be easier for them to do reports since sometimes we might forget some details about any encounter. Lum writes, “Some officers also use BWC footage to help them write reports that are more

Martinez 5 consistent with the interactions they had with citizens, rather than rely on their memory” (Lum et al.). This a positive outcome of using body-worn cameras for police officers. Their job is becoming easier as new technology develops, and BWCs are definitely one of those advancements needed to improve their work. The use of video recordings of encounters the police has had in the past helps them to write a better report because it is a refresh of what happened. Not all of us have perfect memory where we can remember every specific detail of a conversation, so having a video that could help you remember those specific details when it comes to doing your job could make a huge difference in a report. The report is going to be more detailed and have exact words of what was said between the officer and the citizen. Is not like the officer is going to say, I think she said this but not being really sure of what they really said. So this is a big opportunity to be clear and not be doubtful in the comments they make. Another reason for police officers to use BWCs is the fact that they could use the videos as evidence to charge certain individuals or to teach future police officers on how the job is being done. Lum writes, “Another value that officers see in BWCs is in improving the quality and availability of evidence they might need to charge individuals with crimes” (Lum et al.). One of the most advantageous parts of body-worn cameras is that they could use the videos as evidence to incriminate someone who is breaking the law. This is extremely important because we live in a world where sometimes if you don’t have evidence to accuse someone that never happened. We live based on evidence and not just on “she said, he said” this seems fair because sometimes a few people get charged with crimes that they did not commit and these recordings could also come in place in a situation like this. These videos could be presented in defense of a person who is not guilty to help them not to get time in jail. Even though once you enter the system it’s really

Martinez 6 hard to get your name out of their records, and have the same life you had before being accused of something you didn’t do. An example of cameras being used for good purposes like teaching

 orn Camera Integration and Acceptance Among Police Officers, is seen on Examining Body- W Citizens, and External Stakeholders t he authors write, “Many supervisors used BWCs as a training tool, relying on the footage in unit trainings or one-on-one “teachable moments” ( Gaub, Todak, and White, [14] ). Not only are these video recordings being used as evidence to incriminate guilty people or to defend people who are not guilty, but they also give a chance to new police officers to see how things work. These videos could be used to teach rookies how things are supposed to be done, or what they aren’t supposed to be doing. Not only it shows the things that officers do right, but it might also highlight the mistakes past officers committed for them to have it present and never do such mistakes. On the other hand, there are a lot of arguments about the millions of dollars the cameras cost and how people might not be willing to cooperate with police officers because they have a camera. In Police Body-Worn Cameras: Perceptions of Law Enforcement Leadership t he authors write, “A recent news article, for example, estimated the cost of implementing body-worn cameras for all patrol officers in Milwaukee, WI as the same cost of adding 12 new police officers” (Stephenson and Luthern, 2015). Even if implementing BWCs is expensive, I don’t see why not implement them when the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. If these cameras are helping both citizens and police officers be safer doing their job and being more rational, why not spend some extra money on something that could bring big changes to policing. The government spends a lot of money on unnecessary things that don’t show any purpose or advantage and they still keep it. So why not have something that could help train rookies because

Martinez 7 these videos are very helpful, it's like looking for something you don’t know how to do on Youtube and that most of the time you learn from it on how to do it perfectly. All things considered BWCs should be implemented in all police departments throughout the United States. The advantages that body-worn cameras bring to us are extremely impactful in our daily life or in encounter with the police. Body worn-cameras protect the lives of millions of citizens and officers. They are an extra piece of evidence to show when someone is lying about a police officer, or when a police officer needs to make a good report to impress their chief or a higher rank officer. Since the presidency of Obama more and more cameras are being deployed into police departments. BWCs are great when it comes to officers accountability and to be brave to own their actions whether they are good or bad. These cameras have lowered down the number of injustices against people of color and latinos, but it’s still sad how many young people died because of excessive force of officers. However, we believe in change and this new technology is going to help the lives of many of us. People can no longer lie about officers acting a certain way, saying that they were disrespectful or rude because there is going to be evidence saying the contrary. Body-worn cameras have so far been one of the best investments the government could have done for the future of policing and police departments.

Martinez 8 Works Cited Boivin, R., Gendron, A., Faubert, C. et al. The body-worn camera perspective bias. J Exp Criminol 13, 125–142 (2017). https://doi-org.bmcc.ezproxy.cuny.edu/10.1007/s11292-016-9270-2 Lum, Cynthia, et al. “Research on Body-worn Cameras.” Criminology & Public Policy , vol. 18, no. 1, Feb. 2019, pp. 93–118. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/1745-9133.12412. Sutherland, Alex, et al. “Post-Experimental Follow-Ups—Fade-out versus Persistence Effects: The Rialto Police Body-Worn Camera Experiment Four Years On.” Journal of Criminal Justice, vol. 53, 2017, pp. 110–116. Smykla, J.O., Crow, M.S., Crichlow, V.J. et al. Police Body-Worn Cameras: Perceptions of Law Enforcement Leadership. Am J Crim Just 41, 424–443 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-015-9316-4 White, Michael D., et al. “Examining Body-Worn Camera Integration and Acceptance Among Police Officers, Citizens, and External Stakeholders.” Criminology & Public Policy , vol. 17, no. 3, 2018, pp. 649–677....