Cops wearing cameras
Position: Police officers should have to wear a camera, just like their badge.
Reason: it protects honest police officers from false accusations of abuse and it protects honest victims from dishonest police.
"THE Rialto study began in February 2012 and will run until this July. The results from the first 12 months are striking. Even with only half of the 54 uniformed patrol officers wearing cameras at any given time, the department over all had an 88 percent decline in the number of complaints filed against officers, compared with the 12 months before the study, to 3 from 24.
Rialto’s police officers also used force nearly 60 percent less often - in 25 instances, compared with 61. When force was used, it was twice as likely to have been applied by the officers who weren’t wearing cameras during that shift, the study found. And, lest skeptics think that the officers with cameras are selective about which encounters they record, Mr. Farrar noted that those officers who apply force while wearing a camera have always captured the incident on video." NYT
This seems like good way to keep misconduct from happening. I think that when even the ACLU gets behind this, you might be able to get bipartisan support; it's law-and-order based. Give the police evidence to use to prove their case in court and convict the bad guys! And so long as it's not always recording and saving in some big brother type manner (after all, that's the NSA's job, and not the local PD's job) it could get left-wing support too.
I am unsure of the big downside here. Does anyone want to argue against making police wear cameras, like badges, and record their stop-and-frisks, their arrests, and so on?
Reason: it protects honest police officers from false accusations of abuse and it protects honest victims from dishonest police.
"THE Rialto study began in February 2012 and will run until this July. The results from the first 12 months are striking. Even with only half of the 54 uniformed patrol officers wearing cameras at any given time, the department over all had an 88 percent decline in the number of complaints filed against officers, compared with the 12 months before the study, to 3 from 24.
Rialto’s police officers also used force nearly 60 percent less often - in 25 instances, compared with 61. When force was used, it was twice as likely to have been applied by the officers who weren’t wearing cameras during that shift, the study found. And, lest skeptics think that the officers with cameras are selective about which encounters they record, Mr. Farrar noted that those officers who apply force while wearing a camera have always captured the incident on video." NYT
This seems like good way to keep misconduct from happening. I think that when even the ACLU gets behind this, you might be able to get bipartisan support; it's law-and-order based. Give the police evidence to use to prove their case in court and convict the bad guys! And so long as it's not always recording and saving in some big brother type manner (after all, that's the NSA's job, and not the local PD's job) it could get left-wing support too.
I am unsure of the big downside here. Does anyone want to argue against making police wear cameras, like badges, and record their stop-and-frisks, their arrests, and so on?