Posted: September 9th, 2022
Police Officers and the Use of Body Cams
Police Officers and the Use of Body Cams
Introduction
In the wake of police violence and brutality, particularly the black community, there have been calls for body cams to become mandatory for police officers and their programs. The call for body cams is not a new one; in 2014, after the murder of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, it was proposed that body cams become a mandatory practice for the police officers to ensure they take account of their actions (Anthony, James, William, Denise, & Omer, 2017). They were once again proposed in 2017 after the police killed Philando Castle and once again in 2020 after the public killing of George Floyd. These calls propose that this is the most effective way of controlling and monitoring the behavior of law enforcers; through them, it will be easy to shed light on their misconduct, increasing police accountability.
BodyCams on Officers
The widespread call for body-worn cameras (BWCs) is the anticipated positive behavior they will have on the behavior of police officers. It is assumed that many officers will have to comport themselves differently when they realize that their behavior is being recorded and can be used against them. According to the Hawthorne Works effect, people tend to behave differently and more positively once they realize that they are being watched (Yokum, Ravishankar, & Coppock, 2019). Their productivity increases; they become charitable, adhere to rules, and even encourage honesty to avoid facing the negative consequences that would arise if they behaved poorly. Knowing that they are being watched tends to shift their conduct, ensuring that it aligns with socially acceptable conduct. In the policing context, the enforcement of BWCs will influence officers to comply with the rules and code of conduct and avoid any form of misconduct. Many officers have been sentenced and punished for violating their professionalism and code of conduct in the wake of increased public, media, and political condemnation of police misconduct. However, the cases of police violence and brutality often directed at minority groups continue to persist. Therefore, the BWCs will be instrumental in increasing the possibility of a huge percentage of officers conducting themselves professionally and dutifully.
BWCs can also play an instrumental role in monitoring civilians’ behavior when interacting with officers and holding officers accountable. Body cams can roam through private and public spaces, and therefore they can be used in capturing all the forms of interactions between the officers wearing them and civilians. These interactions can then be used in assessing and explaining the relationship between officers and civilians and the perception that civilians have regarding officers (Fan, 2018). The data collected from these interactions can develop ways of improving the relationship between law enforcers and the public.
Bodycams have been instrumental in reducing the number of complaints and allegations issued against law enforcement. Statistics show that there has been a 59% reduction in police violence cases in use, which has been attributed to the increase of officers wearing body cams. Other countries have also experienced these positive changes, such as the 33% reduction in the UK (Yokum, Ravishankar, & Coppock, 2019). For the longest time, people have constantly complained about the lack of trust in the police departments. The reduction in cases and allegations against officers implies that more people are gaining trust in the system.
Police leaders argue that the deployed BCWs has had many benefits for the department. They note that the devices have been instrumental in documenting evidence, further helping in increasing transparency and productivity in the workforce. The documented evidence has been instrumental in allowing them to discover the weaknesses within the force and how these weaknesses affect the ability of the officers to fulfill their duty. Therefore, they can devise how to modify their training programs and ensure that the officers understand how to relate with the public they are supposed to serve properly through the information collected (White, 2014). Additionally, the police operate in an era where everyone has a cellphone to record police encounters and behavior. For instance, the death of George Floyd in early 2020, which triggered the black lives matter (BLM) movement and increased political reaction, was recorded using a cellphone. While in this case, the officer was openly found guilty of killing the civilian who was not resisting arrest. In other instances, cell phone recordings may not accurately show the encounters between officers and civilians. Therefore, body cams will be instrumental in ensuring that the evens and footages captured are from a law officer’s perspective.
However, the use of BCWs is also associated with a wide range of challenges, including data privacy, storage issues, and the fact that the officers manually switch on the bodycams. The main intention of BCWs is top record and ensure accountability of police gross misconduct, particularly towards the minority communities. However, opponents of these strategies argue that Boyd cams are not the main effective way of controlling police gross misconduct. The behavior demonstrated by officers is rooted in white supremacy, which dictates the policies that have continued to provide officers with more power against the people of color (Fan, 2018). Policing resources such as bodycams may not be instrumental in minimizing the inherent bias toward violence against minority communities. But rather, they propose a deeper evaluation and modification of existing policies. Nevertheless, as illustrated by the above statistics, BCWs has been instrumental in increasing transparency and accountability within the law enforcement department. Moreover, changing policies is a long and time-consuming process; therefore, as the public awaits long-term policies, which might take months or years before they can be properly implemented, they can continue benefitting from the positive impacts of bodycams.
Recommendations
The body cams need to be programmed so that they can be triggered automatically by ongoing actions such as the turning on of sirens in a police car. Currently, the cameras are designed so that an officer has to turn them off manually. Therefore, the officers can turn them on and off according to their situations. Therefore, it makes it impossible for the police departments to monitor the behavior of their officers. On other occasions, an officer may be involved in a critical incident making it impossible for them to focus on starting the camera. Therefore, it is recommendable that the systems be designed to activate recording automatically or based on the department policy for their objectives to be effectively achieved. A geo-fence can be included in the bodycam to allow automatic recording immediately after an officer enters a predefined geographical area. As mentioned above, the BWCs are critical in recording police misconduct, particularly towards the minority communities such as the blacks. Therefore, by automatically turning themselves on in black neighborhoods, it will be easy to monitor and reduce gross misconduct in these communities. This will be instrumental in reducing the number of cases that have for years been on the limelight regarding officers being aggressive and brutal towards the black neighborhoods.
In 2021, a new policy was introduced stating that federal agents do not have to wear body cams during search warrants or pre-planned arrests. The body cams are essential in monitoring how officers interact with or deal with civilians. Without the body cams to record their misconducts, most agents choose to violate their code of ethics and professionalism. Therefore, a new policy should be developed, making it mandatory for all officers in the different states to have body cams on them. This will play a critical role in improving the behavior demonstrated by law enforcers.
While the role is to end police violence and misconduct and increase law enforcement’s accountability, it is important to examine how the body cam can be a good investment in the country. One major issue likely to affect the effectiveness of the bodycams is the fact that police officers’ misconduct and policy-making processes are rooted in white supremacy (White, 2014). Policing should be rooted in the safety and equality of the entire society, including the majority and the minority. This s the only way that body cams can be effective.
Digitizing the police department has been associated with a wide range of challenges. One of the major challenges affecting the law enforcement system is the high budget required yet not allocated by the federal government. For instance, for each officer to have a body cam recording their entire shifts without breaks, there will be a need for several terabytes of storage. Yet each department has hundreds or thousands of officers. The department has to be well equipped to analyze the vast data collected by these several cameras each day, as each officer has to record all details of their shifts and have them stored. Through cloud storage, departments will easily be able to store data and ensure that all the storage needs are easily managed (White, 2014). Through cloud storage, departments can minimize the costs associated with storing massive chunks of information. However, there is also a need for the federal government to allocate more resources to the law enforcement sector to facilitate their investments in bodycams.
Conclusion
The rise in police violence and brutality in the twenty-first century has necessitated more ways to control police behavior and interactions with civilians. Body-won Cameras are one of the popular strategies that have been introduced to monitor police behavior. Supporters of this strategy have argued that the BWCs have helped increase accountability and transparency within the police department. The strategy has also helped police leaders to understand the interactions between the officers and civilians to identify weaknesses that need to be addressed in existing training programs. However, opponents argue that even with BWCs, it is difficult to change police behavior deeply rooted in white-based policies. Nevertheless, the study acknowledges that the strategy has positively impacted the police sector while also pointing out the existing challenges with BWCs. The study recommends that it is important for police officers to adopt cloud computing storage to address the above challenges. State leaders must make body cams mandatory while increasing more resources allocated to the police departments. Through these strategies, body-worn cameras can help achieve the objectives they are designed for, including transparency and accountability of police officers.
References
Anthony, B., James, C. J., William, S., Denise, R., & Omer, A. (2017). The Benefits of Body-Worn Cameras: new findings from a randomized controlled trial at the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. N ATIONAL CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFERENCE SERVICE .
Fan, M. D. (2018). Body cameras, big data, and police accountability. Law & social inquiry, 43(4), 1236-1256.
White, M. D. (2014). Police officer body-worn cameras: Assessing the evidence. Washington, DC: Office of Justice Programs, US Department of Justice.
Yokum, D., Ravishankar, A., & Coppock, A. (2019). A randomized control trial evaluating the effects of police body-worn cameras. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(21), 10329-10332.
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Police Officers and the Use of Body Cams