Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 353 posts

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#91

Post by grasshopperpurp »

dogma1138 wrote: post #86
grasshopperpurp wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Police officers are almost entirely decent people . . . This statement requires justification. >Research suggests that family violence is two to four times higher in the law-enforcement community than in the general population. >As the National Center for Women and Policing noted in a heavily footnoted information sheet, "Two studies have found that at least 40 percent of police officer families experience domestic…

Family violence is also more common in first responders/EMTs and soldiers. Take a wild guess on what those have in common with police officers. People that are constantly exposed to highly stressful situations tend to develop psychological problems.

He said:

>Police officers are almost entirely decent people . . .

Between 20% and 40% abuse their families. Does an entirely decent person abuse his family?

I'm not aware of a higher family abuse rate among EMTs, and a quick Google search produced nothing, so I'd appreciate any sources. Your reasoning makes sense, but I can just as easily say that violent people are more inclined to be police officers and soldiers - for obvious reasons. I'd guess it's some of both (some high stress and the attraction of the occupation to violent people).

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#92

Post by darawk »

avn2109 wrote: post #83
darawk wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'd be trivial to find evidence of that in the data. They said that the number of use of force incidents was the same in the camera and non-camera groups. If the cops were disabling their cameras in anticipation of these events, these events would not show up in their camera recordings.

There are many other possible interpretations of the data, besides the one you provide above. E.g. the cops can do lots of shady stuff that isn't a "use of force incident."

Yes, but that'd show up in the data. If there were complaints against them, and those happened to coincide with the cameras being off, that's a very easy thing to detect in the data.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#93

Post by Anechoic »

jandrese wrote: post #3

It probably shouldn't be that big of a surprise. Police officers are almost entirely decent people that shouldn't feel the need to change their behavior just because they're being recorded. Regular citizens would already be on their best behavior around cops, the camera doesn't change much. I think people get a skewed perception of the police force from a relatively small number of highly publicized incidents. Counte…

> I think people get a skewed perception of the police force from a relatively small number of highly publicized incidents.

Or perhaps people arrive at their perceptions based on personal experience? Certainly my own experience with police has shaped my views far more than anything I've seen in the news.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#94

Post by cracell »

taeric wrote: post #74
jMyles wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The underlying question here is: what does enforcement of the public ordinances have to do with medical aid? Why has our society conflated those? Why has our society conflated law enforcement with emergency response at all? What do these two things have to do with each other? That's the problem. The fact that we're talking seriously about affording public policing a sphere of secrecy is just a symptom of that problem…

And it is not like an officer is enforcing ordinances at all hours. Nor do we expect them to be. Outreach is a thing. An officer goes in to give a fun speech to a school. Suddenly, kids in the class are being broadcast. I get it. Most of us are programmers, so we think we can setup a pretty solid set of rules for when something applies. Maybe some of us can. And when that perfect ruleset is found, it will be awesome.…

ACLU has written and refined very good rules for proper bodycam use that protects both citizen and police officer privacy.

It's not that black and white but it's not that complex of an issue either.

Act - https://www.aclu.org/other/model-act-regulating-use-wearable..., White Paper - https://www.aclu.org/other/police-body-mounted-cameras-right...

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#95

Post by dragonwriter »

Anechoic wrote: post #93
jandrese wrote: post #3

It probably shouldn't be that big of a surprise. Police officers are almost entirely decent people that shouldn't feel the need to change their behavior just because they're being recorded. Regular citizens would already be on their best behavior around cops, the camera doesn't change much. I think people get a skewed perception of the police force from a relatively small number of highly publicized incidents. Counte…

> I think people get a skewed perception of the police force from a relatively small number of highly publicized incidents. Or perhaps people arrive at their perceptions based on personal experience? Certainly my own experience with police has shaped my views far more than anything I've seen in the news.

> > I think people get a skewed perception of the police force from a relatively small number of highly publicized incidents.

> Or perhaps people arrive at their perceptions based on personal experience?

Probably also a factor, but that's also not representative and subject to perceptual biases.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#96

Post by frogpelt »

will_brown wrote: post #60

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 wi…

How was the case handled? Did they find the gunman? Was he charged?

I ask because, honestly, I don't think I care what they police say when they first walk up as long as they solve the crime, catch the perpetrator.

The problem we have nowadays is that we get to see "how the (justice system) sausage is made" a lot more than we used to. And it's disturbing. But those guys out there with uniforms on are the ones trying to survive every day and bring criminals to justice. It's easy to be an armchair quarterback.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#97

Post by larrykwg »

jandrese wrote: post #35
gph wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Instead, I've always thought they were good for those particularly difficult "he said / she said" cases that capture public attention. I agree, but at what price point would you say it's worth it? In principle I want bodycams, but with this new study it's making me wonder if pragmatically it's really worth spending millions of dollars each year just for a handful of difficult 'he said / she said' cases to be better…

Those he said/she said events can turn into multi-million dollar lawsuits really quickly. It only takes a couple of incidents for the cameras to pay for themselves. The data storage issue is definitely a concern, but I think it is one that can be effectively managed.

wait but wouldn't the states have to pay for those lawsuits if the video evidence showed the cop doing the thing? Ohh I guess the narrative is that the police is most often wrongfully accused of wrongdoing, costing the state millions, which the cameras could help to clear up. Fnord.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#98

Post by KGIII »

will_brown wrote: post #60

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 wi…

> As an officer of the court myself ...

Could you elaborate on that? I have some thoughts but want to know if my thoughts are really valid. What type of court officer are you? Is it in the same jurisdiction? Things like that. I don't want to prejudice your responses.

(I should also mention that my thoughts aren't going to put any blame on you.)

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#99

Post by spurcell93 »

dpark wrote: post #76
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not upset about what they measured. I'm upset about what they claim they learned from it and about the kinds of causation-related lemmata they (erroneously) assert in the report.

Firstly, you're critiquing a study based on a journalist's write-up about it. Secondly, you're essentially making an epistemological argument. You could apply your core argument to almost anything and come up with the assertion that the research is invalid. "Researchers tracked use-of-force incidents" -> "Researchers tracked reports of use-of-force incidents, which is factually rather different. "Researchers observed…

I agree... at some point, when analyzing a topic, we need to prune the decision tree leading to some tentative conclusions, even if some subtrees might not be 100% verifiably invalid. Our science is imperfect, reporting is imperfect, and very few (if any) complete-information scenarios exist.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#100

Post by yojex »

s73ver_ wrote: post #58
jMyles wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If an agent of the state commits a "horrific, abhorrent affront" against you, you want it to be kept secret? That's what I'm reading here.
Post reply on HN