Body Cams on Cops: Yes? No? Maybe So?

[Hellis]

Agreed. Now w here did I put that brandy....

 

[Dervish]

Well, I thought they required them to stay on. You see, I don't live in America and don't follow the news there, so... As long as they only have to turn them on when actually doing something that has to do with their duty (rather than talking to a colleague for example), I think it's actually okay, and as Jorick said, certain rules and penalties would have to be put in place.

I need to start putting a little Canadian flag in my signature...

 

[Wolk]

I need to start putting a little Canadian flag in my signature...

The Americas. Better? :P

 

[Brovo]

I'm very unsure about this.
Policemen are just humans with human rights, which includes their privacy. I am very aware that they have a duty to fulfil, but if bodycams are the right way to approach this is questionable in my opinion, as human rights need to be respected - even if your government doesn't do it.

We have security cameras in shopping malls. Consider this akin to that, or dash cams on police vehicles: This is to protect both the men in blue, and those they're serving. So long as they don't have to wear it while off-duty, so they can have personal lives outside of their job? I'm all for it.

 

[Wolk]

We have security cameras in shopping malls. Consider this akin to that, or dash cams on police vehicles: This is to protect both the men in blue, and those they're serving. So long as they don't have to wear it while off-duty, so they can have personal lives outside of their job? I'm all for it.

Yep, I was just concerned because I (for some reason) thought that they had to leave it on at all times, which would lead to an array of problems to solve. As I've said in my other post, I think it's okay as long as they can turn it off if they're having a private conversation or anything.

 

[Gwazi Magnum]

I personally think the cameras should be on the full time, but only be used at all when on-duty.
No sense in filming an officer when off duty.

Reasoning for it being on all the time is simply because if the officer has the power to turn it off then it kind of prevents one of the main points, to catch/prevent police abuse.
Now, I absolutely cannot stand the "Screw the cops! Cops are assholes!" mentality being thrown around these days. But at the same time playing blind to the fact police abuse does happen would be silly.
We need a way to catch that, and putting that method under the control of the abuser is honestly insanely pointless.

 

[Space Cowboy]

Cops in the US have near-universal dash cams. There are security cameras up on private property, no public security cam systems. Even with those, dash cams go missing at an alarming rate, especially in cases of police bruality or unjust/questionable fatalities. And there are more anecdotes and actual legal cases of police accounts being not only different, not only opposing, but outright wrong to the point of, well... being a lie. I don't feel like searching these out (Google if you want), but two stories jump to mind of police lying and the only thing saving the victim is camera accounts:

1) A young, drunken man stumbling down a road nearby police on horseback. Out of nowhere, a number of policemen jump on him and beat the ever-loving shit out of him. I want to say this actually happened in Canada. According to the police, the man not only insulted the cop, but struck him. I believe the video had him actually moving away from the officer, or around him, and it was clear the cop advanced the man just to strike him.

2) A police cruiser in NYC was not only speeding and driving recklessly, but crashed into a car with a man inside. The man stepped out in a kind of, "WTF, guys?!" The cops, without hesitating, beat the shit out of him and arrested him on the spot. What for? Reckless driving and speeding and assaulting a police officer. They claimed HE hit THEM. Thankfully, blessedly, a civilian happened to be recording the street when this happened.


So yeah, body cams are a must. With audio, and NO on/off switch available to field officers. There should be physical memory, and cloud-based memory of the video data. Each cop has his unique camera. Hell, mount them into the badges themselves.

 

[AetherDream]

Yes, this isn't even something to debate. For anyone who has been paying attention to what's been going on in the news as of late, the question of a body cam for our militarized police force is a must. As soon as children and unarmed men stop showing up dead, then we'll talk about removing them. Until then, good cops will have to pay for the actions of bad cops and wear that cam.

 

[Windsong]

So yeah, body cams are a must. With audio, and NO on/off switch available to field officers. There should be physical memory, and cloud-based memory of the video data. Each cop has his unique camera. Hell, mount them into the badges themselves.

I'm imagining some rookie officer asking his superior;
"But I have to poop."
"Suck it up, Rookie. They want it all on public record."
"B-b-but I had Chipotle!"
"Those liberal fucks are gonna love that. It's basically what happens when they open their mouths!"

There should be an on/off switch within reason. Maybe a standard disciplinary action if something does happen and it's turned off would be a deterrent.

A major problem is no one views the police as protectors anymore. Kids are taught that police are big, mean, and scary. Not that they take off the uniform to go grocery shopping or to shower, but that they're these boogey-men that will take your mommy and daddy or even them away if they're bad.

See it all the time in my workplace. The kids are terrified of the deputy despite him being a level-headed and nice guy. Public opinion has drastically shifted out of favor of police officers due to a few extreme cases.

 

[AngelNinja2018]

Body cams on cops? While on duty, sure. Make the information reasonably available to public audit.

Off duty? Not so much. They're just a citizen when off duty.

Yeah, I still think that privacy is fairly important.

 

[Protagonist]

I think it's a great idea. It honestly think it's in the police's own interest to use cams, in fact. That way, nobody can just bullshit a brutality charge.

 

[Protagonist]

I'm imagining some rookie officer asking his superior;
"But I have to poop."
"Suck it up, Rookie. They want it all on public record."
"B-b-but I had Chipotle!"
"Those liberal fucks are gonna love that. It's basically what happens when they open their mouths!"

There should be an on/off switch within reason. Maybe a standard disciplinary action if something does happen and it's turned off would be a deterrent.

A major problem is no one views the police as protectors anymore. Kids are taught that police are big, mean, and scary. Not that they take off the uniform to go grocery shopping or to shower, but that they're these boogey-men that will take your mommy and daddy or even them away if they're bad.

See it all the time in my workplace. The kids are terrified of the deputy despite him being a level-headed and nice guy. Public opinion has drastically shifted out of favor of police officers due to a few extreme cases.

My first impression with the police was with a DARE officer who was the nicest guy you'd ever meet. I liked him quite a bit. That's why I think it's important to have police involved in schooling.

Though, it also probably helps that my Dad's a soldier, so armed authority figures was a common sight for me.

 

[Windsong]

I think it's a great idea. It honestly think it's in the police's own interest to use cams, in fact. That way, nobody can just bullshit a brutality charge.

If I could be bothered to find the source there was an article about body cameras drastically lowering reports of police brutality. Namely along the lines of people not bothering to try and report a false claim simply because it's untrue.

 

[Hellis]

See it all the time in my workplace. The kids are terrified of the deputy despite him being a level-headed and nice guy. Public opinion has drastically shifted out of favor of police officers due to a few extreme cases.


REPEATED extreme cases. It's not that much of a rarity, and the punishment for said police have often been downright offensively lacking.

 

[Windsong]

See it all the time in my workplace. The kids are terrified of the deputy despite him being a level-headed and nice guy. Public opinion has drastically shifted out of favor of police officers due to a few extreme cases.


REPEATED extreme cases. It's not that much of a rarity, and the punishment for said police have often been downright offensively lacking.

Don't you live in Sweden or one of the Nordic countries? How does your police force compare? Do your officers have to worry about a simple traffic stop turning deadly? Or just an angry person taking it too far and pulling a knife? Does your country have a minority population that commits an extreme amount of violent crimes yet is allowed to loot and pillage because people fear being labeled as racist?

As someone who doesn't even live in the country where these acts are going on does it honestly relate to you at all?

Honest questions. No bile behind them.

Edited in: these cases are often times blown up by the media to bring bad attention and thus more hits. If we did the opposite and kept it local while praising the hard-working boys in blue there'd be a totally different public opinion.

Also, you are literally one year and one day older than me. Thought that was kinda neat.

 

[Wolk]

Always On

Pro:

• Could help to avoid false claims against the police
• Could prevent police officers from abusing their power
• Could provide evidence in certain situations
• Everything that goes wrong will be noted

Contra:

• Violation of human rights.
• Recordings need to be public in order to be confirmable
• Someone would need to process the data
• Some may simply ignore the fact that the camera is on

Right to privacy:

The right to privacy can only be limited by law when it is necessary to do so in a democratic society for reasons such as national security, public safety, the prevention of crime or protection of the rights and freedoms of others. Any limitation on this right must be proportionate.

Now, whatever is "proportionate" is entirely subjective. In my opinion, literally recording people taking a dump, what they talk about with their colleagues, what people in their proximity do and other things is not necessary to provide security, as you could allow the police to turn the cameras off and put rules in place to prevent them from doing bad stuff off-camera.

Public recordings:
This is a tricky one. If you don't allow public access, the state and police may just lie about the evidence and no one would be able to disprove them. If you grant public access, you'd probably have to censor a lot of the things captured on camera (removing them would lead to the same situation as with making it private) and that would take a huge amount of resources - simply because you would need to check every single recording for such things. I don't think that this would be managable.

Switchable

Pro:

• Prevention of violating privacy
• Less data to process
• Probably more valuable data to process

Contra:

• Forgetting to turn it on again
• Turning it off to be a nasty person

Less, more valuable data to process
Simply because people probably don't want to record everything they do.

Forgetting to turn it on again - Put in some kind of really annoying reminder.

Turning it off to be a nasty person
Obviously there need to be rules to prevent this from happening.

For example:
Before turning off the camera, a reason has to be specified, otherwise the camera won't turn off. A screenshot will be taken and saved along with the reason specified for record keeping. Perhaps you could allow audio/video checkbacks to be made to prevent false accusations. Turning the camera on again should be incredibly easy to the point where you can do it without struggle while running. If something bad happens while the camera was turned off, you are beeing held suspicious, especially if no or only outdated checkbacks are available. It is obligatory to turn on the camera as soon as there is an incident, perhaps even automatically turn on the camera when a weapon is pulled or audio levels go significantly above average (you don't need to record in order to check that) and other signs of danger.

 

[Space Cowboy]

I'm imagining some rookie officer asking his superior;
"But I have to poop."
"Suck it up, Rookie. They want it all on public record."
"B-b-but I had Chipotle!"
"Those liberal fucks are gonna love that. It's basically what happens when they open their mouths!"

There should be an on/off switch within reason. Maybe a standard disciplinary action if something does happen and it's turned off would be a deterrent.

See, I get that. And I would normally be for it. The problem is, while there are some places that have already implemented body cams, well... It's already happened. By "it", I mean there was a civil liberties case of police brutality, and right before it happened, the body cam of the officers were all turned off.

Thing is, they forgot the dash cams were on.

So... Oops. :|

Really, it's the case of the few ruining it for the many. It's why we need body cams at all. Most officers, I'm sure, are actually good men that want to do good things for their communities and adopted communities. But amongst the sheep is the hidden wolf. We cannot deny it; it is a reality.

 

[Gwazi Magnum]

I know it's not really the same thing.
But I feel that if Early Childhood Education center's I'm placed at can have observation rooms, where anyone can walk in and watch what's going on at anytime without our knowledge I think it's fine for a Camera to be on when someone is doing a job that can literally be a lie of death scenario for people on both sides.

 

[Rare]

I say yes; but, it does violate human rights for officers to have it on during work. Such, dash cams are fine and all; but a personal body cam, you might as well as have officers wear Go-Pros on heads and put them on a TV show about the daily life of cops.

I agree that cops should be watch; but, not all cops should be watched. Only the few that are going to be an issue to the public. Think of it as someone being in probation. The officers are being watched to see, if they improve or not. If they don't or go back to 'normal', they get fired and maybe changed.

 

[Protagonist]

I say yes; but, it does violate human rights for officers to have it on during work. Such, dash cams are fine and all; but a personal body cam, you might as well as have officers wear Go-Pros on heads and put them on a TV show about the daily life of cops.

I agree that cops should be watch; but, not all cops should be watched. Only the few that are going to be an issue to the public. Think of it as someone being in probation. The officers are being watched to see, if they improve or not. If they don't or go back to 'normal', they get fired and maybe changed.

Sure. Just make it so they wear cams on-duty, but not off-duty.