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Study finds police body cameras had no significant impact on use of force

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Re: Study finds police body cameras had no significant impact on use of force

#51

Post by ceejayoz »

andrewla wrote: post #38
ceejayoz wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen... , Somalia has roughly the same number of police officers per capita as Canada, Denmark, Sweden, and South Korea.

I was curious about it, so I looked at the underlying data and fixed the numbers on the wikipedia page based on the latest UN data available. Based on that, the number of police per capita is actually considerably lower.

Welp, I've lost the point, but human knowledge has improved. I'll count that as an overall win?

Re: Study finds police body cameras had no significant impact on use of force

#52

Post by jasonpeacock »

Yet a study in Las Vegas reports significant reduction in the use of force when body cameras are used: https://www.cna.org/cna_files/pdf/IRM-2017-U-016112-Final.pd...

In fact, I think the DC report is the exception - cameras are having significant impact most everywhere else.

Re: Study finds police body cameras had no significant impact on use of force

#53

Post by BoiledCabbage »

ufmace wrote: post #42
throwaway2016a wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and publish footage in a way that cannot be censored Easier said than done. Police officers are often seeing people on the worst day of their life. It would be an incredible decrease in privacy and general dignity if all footage was just published uncensored. If someone assaulted you and stole your cloths would you want a video online of you being interviewed about the experience with just a towel on (and probably…

The related argument against this that I've seen from a few cops is that this also removes their ability to use discretion and not charge people. If somebody reports a crime and happens to have some drugs in their pocket and the police find them, they could have just ignored them or confiscated them and not charge the guy in pursuit of the greater good, but with the whole thing on tape, they essentially have to charg…

This argument makes no sense to me. Are police allowed to use discretion?

If Yes - then doing something they're already allowed to do on tape makes no difference.

If No - then either they shouldn't be doing it and tape stops them from doing something wrong. Or they should and laws can be updated to allow it.

Having things float in a legal grey area is terrible for society. If it isn't legal, make it fully legal and cops are now fully covered.

Re: Study finds police body cameras had no significant impact on use of force

#54

Post by horsawlarway »

orclev wrote: post #49
darkerside wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This only matters if you assume malicious intent. I'm not saying it isn't ever there, but let's not pretend it's proven to be statistically significant.

Malicious intent must be assumed. The body cameras exist in order to be a deterrent to malicious police behaviors and as such any system which puts the officers in charge of the functioning of the cameras, and which does not heavily discourage or prevent police from operating with a broken or malfunctioning camera is failing in its primary mission. It should be illegal for an officer to operate or be on duty with a b…

Ironic, given that a core tenant of our justice system is "innocent until proven guilty".

All of the things you mention are "wishlist" items right now.

Lets assume this is true (and honestly, I'd love for it to be true).

>It should be illegal for an officer to operate or be on duty with a broken or otherwise non-functioning body camera

So now that you have that law, how do you enforce it?

How does a department verify that they're complying?

How does any individual officer know whether his camera is working or malfunctioning?

How do they correct the problem if it's a technically complex issue related to camera infrastructure or hardware?

How much additional burden does this place on each department?

How do those departments pay for that added burden?

----

So can we put a system in place that satisfies your very high standard? Almost certainly yes.

Should we? I don't know.

Will we? Almost certainly not. At least not in the immediate future. It's expensive and hard.

Re: Study finds police body cameras had no significant impact on use of force

#55

Post by trowawee »

crusso wrote: post #26
vorotato wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say if an officer has their camera off in line of duty, and something happens they should be charged with obstruction of justice.

If I was interviewing you and I told you that if your laptop stopped working during office hours you could be brought up on criminal charges that could include jail time - would you take the job?

Well, I can’t shoot people to death and potentially get away with it at my job. If I was interviewing for a job where I literally held the power of life or death for other people, then yeah, I would probably expect some pretty strict controls on that power.

Re: Study finds police body cameras had no significant impact on use of force

#56

Post by yesenadam »

horsawlarway wrote: post #54
orclev wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Malicious intent must be assumed. The body cameras exist in order to be a deterrent to malicious police behaviors and as such any system which puts the officers in charge of the functioning of the cameras, and which does not heavily discourage or prevent police from operating with a broken or malfunctioning camera is failing in its primary mission. It should be illegal for an officer to operate or be on duty with a b…

Ironic, given that a core tenant of our justice system is "innocent until proven guilty". All of the things you mention are "wishlist" items right now. Lets assume this is true (and honestly, I'd love for it to be true). >It should be illegal for an officer to operate or be on duty with a broken or otherwise non-functioning body camera So now that you have that law, how do you enforce it? How does a department verify…

Sorry for the irrelevant response but: s/tenant/tenet/

Not just you, I recently read “All information should be free” was a core tenant of the hacker culture at MIT.[0] Don't tell me it's becoming proper English!

A tenant is a person who holds lands; a tenet is something held to be true. I didn't realize until learning Spanish that ten and tain in English words means to have/hold! Their verb 'to have' is tener (Latin: tenere). Maintain is mantener; also there's contener, detener, obtener, retener, sostener...

[0] http://ctankersley.com/2017/01/04/the-history-of-open-source...

Re: Study finds police body cameras had no significant impact on use of force

#57

Post by orclev »

horsawlarway wrote: post #54
orclev wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Malicious intent must be assumed. The body cameras exist in order to be a deterrent to malicious police behaviors and as such any system which puts the officers in charge of the functioning of the cameras, and which does not heavily discourage or prevent police from operating with a broken or malfunctioning camera is failing in its primary mission. It should be illegal for an officer to operate or be on duty with a b…

Ironic, given that a core tenant of our justice system is "innocent until proven guilty". All of the things you mention are "wishlist" items right now. Lets assume this is true (and honestly, I'd love for it to be true). >It should be illegal for an officer to operate or be on duty with a broken or otherwise non-functioning body camera So now that you have that law, how do you enforce it? How does a department verify…

Obviously there's the question of how foolproof you want the system to be, but at a minimum there should be some system that monitors and confirms it's receiving at least a heartbeat signal from the camera and that the camera is reporting normal functioning. If the camera drops out police dispatch should be notified who in turn should notify the officer that he needs to return to the station to have his camera replaced. One possibly more passive solution that others have mentioned is to simply discount any testimony an officer provides that doesn't have an operating camera to corroborate his statements and instead defer to non-law enforcement testimony in those cases instead of the current situation where an officer is always considered more trustworthy than anyone else. That provides very strong incentive for police to insure their cameras are working because in the event they aren't any testimony they provide would be more or less nullified and likely lose them cases.

Re: Study finds police body cameras had no significant impact on use of force

#58

Post by darkerside »

orclev wrote: post #49
darkerside wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This only matters if you assume malicious intent. I'm not saying it isn't ever there, but let's not pretend it's proven to be statistically significant.

Malicious intent must be assumed. The body cameras exist in order to be a deterrent to malicious police behaviors and as such any system which puts the officers in charge of the functioning of the cameras, and which does not heavily discourage or prevent police from operating with a broken or malfunctioning camera is failing in its primary mission. It should be illegal for an officer to operate or be on duty with a b…

I agree an independent body should own the audit process. It's a common sense best practice. What I'm saying is, I don't think we'll find it makes a significant difference. Most cops are trying to do a good job and keep our streets safe and will not be "deterred" from any specific behavior. When mistakes do happen, we'll continue to judge actions in a court of public opinion, where all are guilty until proven innocent.

Re: Study finds police body cameras had no significant impact on use of force

#59

Post by darkerside »

orclev wrote: post #57
horsawlarway wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironic, given that a core tenant of our justice system is "innocent until proven guilty". All of the things you mention are "wishlist" items right now. Lets assume this is true (and honestly, I'd love for it to be true). >It should be illegal for an officer to operate or be on duty with a broken or otherwise non-functioning body camera So now that you have that law, how do you enforce it? How does a department verify…

Obviously there's the question of how foolproof you want the system to be, but at a minimum there should be some system that monitors and confirms it's receiving at least a heartbeat signal from the camera and that the camera is reporting normal functioning. If the camera drops out police dispatch should be notified who in turn should notify the officer that he needs to return to the station to have his camera replac…

This is like a nightmare scenario. Criminal testimony should be given more weight than the police? Madness.

Re: Study finds police body cameras had no significant impact on use of force

#60

Post by vorotato »

crusso wrote: post #26
vorotato wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say if an officer has their camera off in line of duty, and something happens they should be charged with obstruction of justice.

If I was interviewing you and I told you that if your laptop stopped working during office hours you could be brought up on criminal charges that could include jail time - would you take the job?

If your DLP mysteriously turns off and then corporate data gets leaked you could be brought up on criminal charges that could include jail time. Which is the present scenario nearly all of us are in.
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