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United States[edit]

In the aftermath of the shooting of Michael Brown and the death of Eric Garner, police use of body camera technology has become a topic of national debate. In 2014, there was a Whitehouse.gov petition asking for, what they called, the Mike Brown law. The language of the petition states:

“Create a bill, sign into law, and set aside funds to require all state,county, and local police, to wear a camera. Due to the latest accounts of deadly encounters with police, We the People, petition for the Mike Brown Law. Create a bill, sign into law, and set aside funds to require all state,county, and local police, to wear a camera.The law shall be made in an effort to not only detour police misconduct(i.e. brutality, profiling, abuse of power), but to ensure that all police are following procedure, and to remove all question, from normally questionable police encounters. As well, as help to hold all parties within a police investigation, accountable for their actions.”[1]

In fact, on December 1, 2014, President Barack Obama "proposed reimbursing communities half the cost of buying cameras and storing video—a plan that would require Congress to authorize $75 million over three years to help purchase 50,000 recording devices".[2] He also asked Congress for a $263 million package overall to deal with community policing initiatives that would provide a 50 percent federal match for local police departments to purchase body cameras and to store them.[3] A National Institute of Justice report found this in regards to responding police agencies: "In a sample of police departments surveyed in 2013, approximately 75 percent of them reported that they did not use body-worn cameras".[4]A November 2014 survey of police departments serving the 100 most populous . cities, Vocativ found that "41 cities use body cams on some of their officers, 25 have plans to implement body cams and 30 cities do not use or plan to use cams at this time". The following cities have body cam technology in place: Oakland and San Diego, California; Denver and Colorado Springs, Colorado; Mesa, Arizona; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Omaha, Nebraska; Dallas, Ft. Worth, San Antonio, Houston, Texas; Indianapolis, Indiana; Detroit, Michigan; Columbus, Ohio; Washington, D.C.; Atlanta, Georgia; Hickory, North Carolina, and Miami, Florida.[5]

Following The Law Enforcement Officer-Worn Body Camera Act, the state of Illinois became one of the first states to have a comprehensive set of rules for Police departments in regards to body camera usage.[6] The Chicago Police Department as well as Mayor of the city, Rahm Emanuel, have been vocal about their plan to enact a body-worn camera expansion that would equip police officers by the end of 2017. The goal of this plan as well as the hiring of more officers is to improve public trust in the law, expand transparency, and halt the climbing number of homicides.[7][8] Springfield Police Department (Illinois) has also been among the local departments that have expanded the use of body worn cameras despite the  Springfield Police Chief Kenny Winslow stating that " there are still problems with the state body camera law, and many departments in Illinois aren’t adopting the cameras as a result". [9] One of those departments is the Minooka Police Department that discontinued the use of body cameras because they felt overburdened by administrative responsibilities. [10][11][12]

There has been research behind the use of body worn cameras and the effect that these cameras have on police behavior. In Rialto, California, for example, police officers were to wear small Body Cameras at all times and record all working hours. According to the data, "The cameras cost about $900 dollars each. They can hold up to 12 hours of full color footage and upload their footage via a cloud system. After one year researchers found that after requiring the Rialto police to wear the cameras complaints against officers from citizens dropped by 88% and “use of force” dropped by 59%".[13] The findings of this research has lead to debates concerning costs, rights, and the accuracy of the study.[14][13] In New York City, for example, body worn cameras could cost up to $31 million. However, cities such as Washington, D.C. report that body worn cameras would save money by reducing lawsuits targeted towards the police force and by aiding in the dismissal of court cases with digital evidence provided by the recorded footage of the body worn cameras.[13]The University of South Florida released a report that studied the effects of body-worn cameras for the Orlando Police Department that lasted an entire year.[15] The research found that for officers wearing the body cameras, use-of-force incidents dropped by 53%, civilian complaints dropped by 65%, two in three officers who wore the cameras said they’d want to continue wearing them in the future and that it made them "better officers".[15]

Police unions in several U.S. cities, such as New York City (the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, which represents the NYPD),[16] Las Vegas,[17] and Jersey City, New Jersey.[18] St. Louis, Missouri,[19] expressed doubts and/or opposition to BMVs. Specifically, union officials expressed concerns about possible distraction and safety issues, and questioned "whether all the footage filmed by body cameras will be accessible via public-records requests, whether victims of domestic violence will be hesitant to call police if they know they will be filmed and whether paying for the cameras and maintenance will lead to cuts elsewhere in the police budget".[18] Others have worried about a "gotcha discipline".[19] Some unions have argued that it was "mandatory" for police departments to include provisions about BMVs cameras in union contracts because it would be a "clear change in working conditions" as well as something that could "impact an officer’s safety".[17]

The American Civil Liberties Union is an organization that has been a major proponent of body cameras on officers.[20] The ACLU has advocated body camera use for both police departments and U.S. Customs and Border Protection,[21] granted that safeguards are in place to protect the privacy of both officers and civilians.[22] However, they have opposed the use of such systems for parking enforcement officers, fire marshals, building inspectors, or other code enforcement officers.[23] Some police departments in the United States, such as the Albuquerque Police Department and Rialto Police Department, have experimented with or deployed body-worn camera systems.

In 2012, the National Institute of Justice at the United States Department of Justice issued a primer regarding laws, policies, practices, and technology for local police departments to consider.[24]

The debate on body worn videos for police rages on. Some believe similarly to Fox News resident psychiatrist, Keith Ablow, who stated that it was an "insult to police officers" to provide them body cameras and additional De-escalation training.[25] Others, such as Black Lives Matter, has released specific policy solutions to tackle the issue of police violence and escalation that include body cameras for police, limited use of force, and demilitarization of the police are a few of the ten crucial policies listed in Campaign Zero.[26][27] The debates on body worn cameras for police officers indirectly touches on the effects of the War on Drugs and violence where former President Bill Clinton links the war on drugs to fueling more cycles of violence,[28] Senator Rand Paul "compared the war on drugs to the racist policies of the Jim Crow era",[29] and the American Civil Liberties Union released a report that states that "while marijuana use rates between blacks and whites are comparable, blacks are nearly four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession".[30]

  1. ^ writer, Author: Joe FletcherJoe Fletcher is a; Gr, community organizer based in; Rapids; Facebook, Michigan You can follow him on; Twitter (2014-08-20). "This White House Petition For a 'Mike Brown Law' Would Require Cops to Wear a Camera On Duty". Addicting Info | The Knowledge You Crave. Retrieved 2017-03-09. {{cite web}}: |first= has generic name (help)
  2. ^ Peter Hermann; Rachel Weiner (2 December 2014). "Issues over police shooting in Ferguson lead push for officers and body cameras". Washington Post.
  3. ^ "Obama To Ask For $263 Million For Police Body Cameras, Training". NPR.org. Retrieved 2017-03-09.
  4. ^ "Research on Body-Worn Cameras and Law Enforcement". National Institute of Justice. Retrieved 2017-03-09.
  5. ^ Abigail Tracy; E.J. Fox (15 November 2014). "Is Your Police Force Wearing Body Cameras?". Vocativ.
  6. ^ "50 ILCS 706/ Law Enforcement Officer-Worn Body Camera Act". www.ilga.gov. Retrieved 2017-02-16. {{cite web}}: no-break space character in |title= at position 3 (help)
  7. ^ "Mayor Emanuel and Police Superintendent Escalante Announce Districts for Body-Worn Camera Expansion | Chicago Police Department". home.chicagopolice.org. Retrieved 2017-02-16.
  8. ^ Lee, William. "Police body cameras to be implemented citywide a year early: officials". chicagotribune.com. Retrieved 2017-02-16.
  9. ^ "Police body cameras hit Springfield streets". Retrieved 2017-02-16.
  10. ^ "Illinois law discourages police from using body cameras". NY Daily News. Retrieved 2017-02-16.
  11. ^ "Minooka police discontinue body camera use". Morris Herald-News. Retrieved 2017-02-16.
  12. ^ "Illinois police department gives up on body cameras because they're tired of people asking for videos". www.rawstory.com. Retrieved 2017-02-16.
  13. ^ a b c Thompson, Derek. "Forcing America's Weaponized Police to Wear Cameras". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2017-03-09.
  14. ^ writer, Author: Joe FletcherJoe Fletcher is a; Gr, community organizer based in; Rapids; Facebook, Michigan You can follow him on; Twitter (2014-08-20). "This White House Petition For a 'Mike Brown Law' Would Require Cops to Wear a Camera On Duty". Addicting Info | The Knowledge You Crave. Retrieved 2017-03-09. {{cite web}}: |first= has generic name (help)
  15. ^ a b Wing, Nick (2015-10-13). "Study Shows Less Violence, Fewer Complaints When Cops Wear Body Cameras". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2017-03-13.
  16. ^ Pervaiz Shallwani (September 4, 2014). "NYPD Unveil Two Cameras for Officers". Wall Street Journal.
  17. ^ a b Schoenmann, Joe (7 May 2012). "Metro's decision to test body-mounted cameras". Las Vegas Sun.
  18. ^ a b Terrence T. McDonald (5 December 2014). "Jersey City cops urge caution on plan for police body cameras". The Jersey Journal.
  19. ^ a b Alissa Reitmeier (16 September 2014). "Tension rises between St. Louis Police, union over body cameras". KMOV.
  20. ^ Stanley, Jay. "POLICE BODY-MOUNTED CAMERAS: WITH RIGHT POLICIES IN PLACE, A WIN FOR ALL". www.aclu.org. American Civil Liberties Union. Retrieved 21 April 2016.
  21. ^ "Strengthening CBP with the Use of Body-Worn Cameras" (PDF). 27 June 2014. Retrieved 30 November 2014. The use of body-worn cameras, deployed within an appropriate policy framework that includes strong privacy protections for officers/agents and the public, should be promptly piloted by CBP and then expanded to cover all CBP enforcement encounters with the public.
  22. ^ "Body-Worn Cameras Should Not Expand Beyond Law Enforcement". ACLU blog. 29 August 2014. Retrieved 30 November 2014. The Guardian reported last week that Miami Beach is planning on expanding the use of body cameras beyond the police to include "meter maids", code enforcement officers, and building and fire inspectors. This use of the technology does not make sense... I am not aware of any cases of building inspectors shooting unarmed civilians in the course of their work. The fact is, these jobs do not come with the frightening powers that police officers possess, and so do not need the same kinds of checks on those powers. Deploying body cameras on these workers would bring all the downsides of police body cams—including in some cases filming inside private homes—without any of the benefits. The balance is completely different.
  23. ^ "Police Body-Mounted Cameras: With Right Policies in Place, a Win For All". 9 October 2013. Retrieved 30 November 2014. For the ACLU, the challenge of on-officer cameras is the tension between their potential to invade privacy and their strong benefit in promoting police accountability. Overall, we think they can be a win-win—but only if they are deployed within a framework of strong policies to ensure they protect the public without becoming yet another system for routine surveillance of the public, and maintain public confidence in the integrity of those privacy protections. Without such a framework, their accountability benefits would not exceed their privacy risks.
  24. ^ U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs. "A primer on Body Worn Cameras for law enforcement" (PDF). National Institute of Justice. Retrieved 15 April 2014.
  25. ^ "Fox News psychiatrist: Body cameras, de-escalation training are 'an insult to police officers'". www.rawstory.com. Retrieved 2017-03-13.
  26. ^ Craven, Julia; Reilly, Ryan J. (2015-08-21). "Here's What Black Lives Matter Activists Want Politicians To Do About Police Violence". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2017-03-14.
  27. ^ "Campaign Zero". Campaign Zero. Retrieved 2017-03-14.
  28. ^ Grim, Ryan; Ferner, Matt (2015-02-14). "Bill Clinton Apologizes To Mexico For War On Drugs". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2017-03-14.
  29. ^ Knafo, Saki (2013-09-18). "Rand Paul Decries Mandatory Minimum Sentences, Likens War On Drugs To Jim Crow". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2017-03-14.
  30. ^ Angell, Tom (2013-06-04). "ACLU Report: Racist Marijuana Laws Target Blacks". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2017-03-14.