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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

#171

Post by QAPereo »

katastic wrote: post #156
djrogers wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would have to prove a) that it was evidence of a crime, and b) the police had reason to believe or know it was such. In the absence of laws requiring full transparency and access to body cam footage, the body cams are just likely to be abused.

>You would have to prove a) that it was evidence of a crime, and b) the police had reason to believe or know it was such. Missing audio and a big "redacted" sticker is a pretty damning evidence that "Something" was removed. IF there was nothing to hide, why did they remove it?

That’s logic, not Law.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#172

Post by dragonwriter »

goialoq wrote: post #162
Zak wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's easy to be an armchair quarterback. I don't know how to be an orthopedic surgeon. The closest thing I've had to medical training was a first aid and CPR class. What I do know is that if an orthopedic surgeon, upon first seeing an overweight patient complaining of hip pain says "lay off the cheeseburgers and your hip will be fine, you fat slob", that doctor is doing a bad job. Not only is it hostile and rude, i…

> I went to school for it, but decided that wasn't what I want to do with my life. Interesting, because most police officers don't need to go to school for it to get the job, right?

> Interesting, because most police officers don't need to go to school for it to get the job, right?

It's usually not a minimum requirement, but a degree, usually in criminal justice, can be a significant competitive advantage in applications.

You don't strictly need to go to school to be a professional programmer, either, but people still go to school for it.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#173

Post by mcguire »

darawk wrote: post #92
avn2109 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As far as I can tell, there is no analysis of the video data mentioned in this article. They're only comparing numbers of complaints with and without cameras.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#174

Post by mmalaaksonen »

djrogers wrote: post #128
fao_ wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be illegal otherwise, wouldn't it? Redaction of evidence

You would have to prove a) that it was evidence of a crime, and b) the police had reason to believe or know it was such. In the absence of laws requiring full transparency and access to body cam footage, the body cams are just likely to be abused.

In contrast, full transparency of body cam footage could and would compromise ongoing investigations and identities of people in witness protection and so on. So full transparency in private/closed court or redacted versions showing only 'relevant' information in public/open court. Maybe full transparency after the information in the video becomes irrelevant, but micromanaging a hude amount of body cam footage would prove to be quite difficult.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#175

Post by dpark »

jamesw6811 wrote: post #131
dpark wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There is a pretty big difference in your two examples. Models of bosons behave in a predictable way. I can think of several likely reasons that reports of use-of-force incidents would not correlate directly with actual use-of-force. As a result, in a study or a journalistic write-up of said study, I wouldn't jump to the shorthand of "tracked use-of-force incidents" as opposed to "reports of use-of-force incidents". J…

I think the examples track pretty well. You could say that body cameras somehow cause a rise and reporting that exactly offsets the reduction in violence, but that’s not even wild conjecture. It’s worse. It’s inventing factors to make the data fit, factors that are by definition not measurable. Whatever we measure, it’s possible to invent a factor that makes the measurement completely wrong.

Scientists could similarly argue that there is another particle that only shows up when we measure that happens to look exactly like the Higgs boson in every way we can measure. But then everyone would call bullshit.

Again, if there are better/other things to measure, that’s legitimate criticism. Simply inventing factors that make the valid measurements null and declaring it impossible to actually measure isn’t.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#176

Post by mcguire »

"“This is the most important empirical study on the impact of police body-worn cameras to date,” said Harlan Yu from Upturn, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit consulting company that studies how technology affects social issues. It was not directly involved in the research. “The results call into question whether police departments should be adopting body-worn cameras, given their high cost.”"

The point of police body cameras is to have positive evidence of police behavior. If the presence of cameras reduces the number of reported incidents, that is a nice side effect, but otherwise completely irrelevant.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#177

Post by weberc2 »

forapurpose wrote: post #147
Consultant32452 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter counter option: Not all districts are created equally. We know from history that some districts have become so corrupt that the feds had to step in and replace entire police forces. I suspect police abuse is not as wide-spread as we've been led to believe by social justice marketing, but I'm open to evidence to the contrary. Let's put our engineers to work and get the costs of these camera systems way down, a…

> social justice marketing ... not just the BLM folks ... It doesn't sound like you are "open to evidence to the contrary". Those words seem to dismiss such evidence.

Skepticism is merited after a certain volume of debunked claims.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#178

Post by PhasmaFelis »

magnetic wrote: post #154
corey_moncure wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An economic solution lies in wait. What is the impact of settlements in "he said / she said" cases resolved in the defendant's favor? Is it "millions of dollars each year"?

I don't know if that works... I mean, even if it's millions of $ each year that PD have to settle/pay, why does it hurt them? Aren't they simply going to pass that cost back to the taxpayers?

Police departments have budgets, not blank checks. If the police come to the local government saying they need an extra umpty-million this year because they keep getting sued for brutality, questions are going to be asked.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#179

Post by PhasmaFelis »

rhizome wrote: post #107
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…

What do cops care about a defense lawyer's "easy payday?"

They care when the chief has to explain to the city council why they need an extra $2 million in the budget this year. Shit rolls downhill.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#180

Post by PhasmaFelis »

eric_h wrote: post #70
s73ver_ wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

> 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". I really don't think it's that clear cut. The cops who turned their backs aren't all, necessarily, bad people. The insularity of police culture generates significant peer pressure for cops to cover each other's backs and to protect their mutual perceived safety and self interest.…

History is full of murderous monsters who were nothing but kind to their families and neighbors. I recognize that these cops are not mustache-twirling villains but humans subject to various emotional pressures, but if they're enabling and protecting murderers then they are not good cops.
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