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A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

nytimes.com

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Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#51

Post by dpark »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #41

> Researchers tracked use-of-force incidents, This is literally impossible. Researchers tracked reports of use-of-force incidents, which is factually rather different. If you hypothetically have fewer incidents and simultaneously higher percentage reporting of incidents when people are able to see if there's probable evidence supporting their complaints (i.e. the visible presence of a body camera), you could end up w…

> This is literally impossible. Researchers tracked reports of use-of-force incidents, which is factually rather different.

This is unfair. You're complaining that they didn't do something that you admit is impossible. They measured essentially everything they could.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#53

Post by jMyles »

MSM wrote: post #25
jMyles wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is a compelling argument. What is the connection between enforcement of statutory code and medical aid / emergency response? Why do these social services need to be delivered by LEOs? At my college, one of the best things my student government did was first response in cases of rape and sexual assault. We had a phone number that people were able to call and get a response from a peer who had been t…

Replace talking about a rape with any of many reasons the police might be called and it makes just as little sense to have all these videos public. Super innocent example: A 14 year old kid breaks their leg and the cops show up to them in agony and crying. Would be very easy for a few people that dislike them to plaster them crying all over social media. Yes, the event was public to begin with, but the chances of one…

> Super innocent example: A 14 year old kid breaks their leg and the cops show up to them in agony and crying.

This seems like the same argument. What does enforcement of the laws have to do with medical aid? Why has our society conflated these two things?

I assert that the state has an interest in injecting law enforcement concepts in all sorts of situation precisely because it opens up uncertainty over its public nature.

Instead, we need law enforcement to be its own discrete activity, and among its norms for it to be entirely public and based on public consent.

Why are we rehashing this almost 200 years after Robert Peel's work?

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#54

Post by lostlogin »

jMyles wrote: post #12
eric_h wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There will be footage recorded by those cameras that will drastically impinge on the privacy of civilians should it be shared publicly. It's a nice idea, but I think it has some pretty significant potential for downsides.

I find this idea very toxic. If the state can send an agent somewhere, then that place and the goings-on that were witnessed are a matter of public record. If that isn't so, and isn't sacred, then we're saying that secrecy in policing is normal, and that goes against hundreds of years of progress in the common-law tradition. In order for people to enjoy the kind of privacy you discuss, we need to have non-state suppo…

Yeah, good idea to have people help everyone. However it would be duplicating loads of state service and, as always, who pays?

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#55

Post by s73ver_ »

irrational wrote: post #27
mistermann wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Police officers are almost entirely decent people should perhaps be > Police officers are almost entirely almost decent people The fact that the "few" (so we're told) bad apples aren't rooted out by their fellow honest, law-abiding officers suggests they're not as squeaky clean as some might think.

Or they don't know. I had a coworker who was recently arrested for child porn. Despite knowing and working with him for years there was no indication that he wasn't "squeaky clean".

But we're talking about incidents that are public. When Eric Garner was choked to death by police, I don't recall hearing a lot of cops call for those detectives to be fired. Hell, when the Mayor of NYC said something about it, at the next event, cops turned their backs on him.

These are not "decent people".

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#56

Post by lostlogin »

jMyles wrote: post #16
ookware wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today my officers spent hours talking to a victim of rape, looking after her children and dealing with the aftermath. I'm sure she'd love that on YouTube for all to see.

I don't think this is a compelling argument. What is the connection between enforcement of statutory code and medical aid / emergency response? Why do these social services need to be delivered by LEOs? At my college, one of the best things my student government did was first response in cases of rape and sexual assault. We had a phone number that people were able to call and get a response from a peer who had been t…

You don’t want police involvement in rapes?

Edit: nice, you edit the parent and don’t note it.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#57

Post by phil21 »

givinguflac wrote: post #4

Personally I think police could not only solve their storage problem, but also create a revenue stream and public good will: by simply storing the video on a public service like YouTube. It also increases transparency though, which is probably why it will never happen.

No thanks. Now anyone with a minor budget can run every single police video through image recognition and get a whole lot of private info on folks you likely don't want getting out.

Happen to be at a party that was broken up due to noise complaints? Drugs were found there? Why were you caught on camera leaving the house when officers arrived? Sounds like you are a liability!

If this actually happened I would give it 6mo before you get a credit agency or something of their ilk providing this data to such agencies for background checks/employment checks/etc. It will take the social media data mining and now include all law enforcement interactions ever.

I, for one, do not want to live in the world where I get to explain every traffic stop to a future employer or my insurance company. I'm sure both would absolutely love that information to use against me.

I think the writing is on the wall on this one though. In my lifetime I fully expect what I describe above to be happening behind the scenes in "public private partnerships". In some cases it already is.

Just yet another way to create permanent second-class citizens like we have with felons, and are trying as hard as we can to extend that into other areas of society.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#58

Post by s73ver_ »

jMyles wrote: post #49
sigstoat wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find this idea very toxic. If the state can send an agent somewhere... if the cops bust into your house because they misread the address of the warrant (something which happens regularly), and they capture some video of you walking around eating cereal naked, do you think that should immediately and irrevocably go up on youtube?

Obviously in a decent society this is a horrific, abhorrent affront. And yes, I'm fine with the horrific, abhorrent affronts of the state being public if I'm the victim. How about we stop allowing police to search homes in the first place in 99.9% of cases?

"And yes, I'm fine with the horrific, abhorrent affronts of the state being public if I'm the victim."

Ok. I'm not.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#59

Post by Overtonwindow »

I think for police cameras, and the idea of being watched as a catalyst for better behavior, the focus of behavior modification is misplaced. IMO police in America have become separated from the rest of society, through hubris, militarization, or some perceived "us versus them" thinking. They appear to see their behavior, regardless of what that behavior is, as protecting the public, and stopping others from breaking the law. The police as an institution have placed themselves in a sphere of superiority, not beholden to others. We must work to bring the idea of police officer closer to that of citizen, stop the militarization, stop the us versus them thinking, and teach officers that they are to peaceful officers that serve and protect, not an authoritarian paramilitary force, immune from society's laws and norms.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#60

Post by will_brown »

I was recently the victim of an armed kidnapping, escaping only by jumping out of my own car from the driver seat while in gear with the gunman in the passenger seat.

By the time the police arrived, my attacker escaped in my car and the first words out of the sergeants mouth was “cut the crap, quit jerking us around, what really happened?”

Sure enough I was in a jurisdiction that only two months prior was equipped with vest cameras (due to community outrage over an execution style killing of a 21 year old black male pulled over with a phone the police thought was a gun). As an officer of the court myself I was beyond dismayed and obtained 2 different copies of police video from the scene...wouldn’t you know both officers vest videos were redacted and specifically edited out the audio of the sergeant’s first words to me and the sergeant’s video didn’t exist. The dvds even say redacted right on them, and I knew before I even watched, which is funny because I had to pay ~$100 for the video, basically paying for the time it took for the department to watch and redact the 1 part I really wanted.

How would such a system have any effect of police officer behavior?

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