Judges Junk Jailcam

theodp writes "With one dissenting opinion, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that an AZ sheriff's use of Webcams to broadcast prisoners being booked and held in cells constituted a profoundly undesirable level of humiliation, rejecting the sheriff's argument that the Webcasts deterred crime and showed the public how jails work." The Village Voice has a good article from a few years ago detailing how the jailcams work.

Comments

I would feel safer if...

[BrokenStructure]

I ever ended up in jail and I knew there was a jail cam. It's like putting a mirror next to an item that's commonly stolen in a store. If a person feels like they're being watched, they're a lot less likely to try anything 'funny'.

Re:I would feel safer if...

[RubberChainsaw]

How would having live a camera in your toilet make you feel safer? You're still going to get molested in the showers, only this time it'll be on live xxx internet feeds.

I think that our current prison situation is unacceptable. The amount of rape, violence and criminal behavior that takes place within prisons makes them unsuitable for rehabilitation. Prisons are a breeding ground for diseases like HIV and Hep C. Prison officials aren't doing enough to stop the rape and spread of disease. They're too busy making their millions off of the prisons to care.

I think the public does need to be more exposed to the problems with our prisons. But these jail cams in arizona aren't the way to go about doing that. These cameras aren't being used for education or information. They're being used as exploitation of the prisoners. Putting cameras in the women's toilets is not going to help teenagers stay away from crime.

The sheriff responsible for these cameras is reknowned for his "humiliation" tactics in dealing with criminals. I strongly disagree with his approach in this matter.

Re:I would feel safer if...

[kfg]

As one of the respondents so graphically notes the issue is not the recording of jailhouse events, but the public broadcast of same.

Do you really want yourself, unjustly accused in the first place (and what social value is served by public humiliation of the unjustly accused?), publicly becoming Bubba's bitch? Recorded for all time?

The only possible real value of this to the public is actually to place the law officers on their best behavior.

To gain maximum value from this we would need to live in a society that does not equate accusation with guilt, but, unfortunately, we do not.

KFG

Re:I would feel safer if...

[Epistax]

Do you really want yourself, unjustly accused in the first place (and what social value is served by public humiliation of the unjustly accused?), publicly becoming Bubba's bitch? Recorded for all time?

If it happened, uh duh yes I want a record of it so he'll be hopping off to prison for the rest of his life. I don't care even if a jury sees it. Vanity is not more important than justice.

The problem is with *who* the cams are on...

[Rude Turnip]

Since we have this notion of someone being "innocent until proven guilty," I can see why having a webcam on while someone is being *booked* can be a problem. If (theoretically) everyone in the world can see John Doe getting booked for a crime which he may or may not have committed, how can he ever get a fair jury?

Maybe not before proven guilty...

[blogtim]

I can see the point that this is no different than celebrities or politicians being booked and the media showing up. How about if it were done after one is proven guilty - sort of as an extra punishment.

If I was in prison I would WANT jailcam

[Forge]

If I was in prison I would WANT jailcam all over the prison and in my cell.

Ordinary security cameras protect you from your fellow prisoners by alerting guards to misconduct. broadcasting this on the web and archiving images on the same site protects you from misconduct by guards. Trust me... No guard wants his mother to see him beating a prisoner to a bloody pulp and then sodomizing him.

of course to work right you need lots of cameras protected from abuse and positioned so you can see who tampers with them. My only loss as a prisoner in such a facility is that I have to be more cautious in my masturbation.
Prison is about taking away some freedoms of a person convicted of a crime. I prefer to louse my privacy than my religious or sexual preference. Never mind life and limb.

Re:Huh?

[Carnildo]

I think it was a perfectly ACCEPTABLE level of humiliation for prisoners.

It would probably be a perfectly acceptable level of humiliation for convicts. The problem was that the cams were broadcasting from the holding cells for suspects.

Innocent until proven guilty

[ucblockhead]

I find it disturbing the number of ways that law enforcement is finding to punish people for merely being arrested.

We're supposed to be punishing people for being convicted not for being arrested.

Re:Nah.

[Carnildo]

There is a camera in the cop car that pulls you over.

The camera in the cop car isn't being broadcast to the whole world. These jailcams were.

A good start, a long way to go.

[deacon]

Good, someone that realizes that people in custody are human beings.

Next, a realization that prison rape is not "funny", is a violation of basic human rights, and that /. comments about "bubba the love bunny" deserve a -1, flamebait mod, not a +1 funny.

In a civilized society, prisoners are sentenced to time in jail.

They should not be subject to torture at the hands of other inmates, and it is the duty of the State to prevent such abuses.

Deterrence

[blooba]

The concept of deterrence is just pure B.S. Deterrence simply does not work. It never has, and it never will. Why? Because most felons commit their crimes without first stopping to consider the consequences. The ability to consider the consequences requires an informed, sane and sober mind, and few felons possess all three qualities at the time during which they commit their crimes.

Idiots like Sherriff Arpaio know that deterrence does not work. They do it because they want to mete out further punishment, beyond the convict's actual sentence. They feel, quite incorrectly, that they have the right and/or duty to make prisons and jails living hells for the inmates.

We need to do something to stop this. Most people are indifferent because they have no family members or loved ones behind bars. But take it from me: it can happen to you; it can happen to anyone. When you least expect it, someone you know will screw up and get thrown in prison. You won't feel so indifferent then.

innocent

[Doc Ruby]

Until convicted, like when arrested, booked and held, people are innocent of the crime of which they are accused. Any treatment of them other than obtaining their presence in the justice system, which could prove their guilt, is unacceptable, and threatens us all.

Re:It's not only the cams

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Jail should purely be about rehabilitation

Purely?

"Sorry, you've shown insufficient remourse for illegally downloading Michael Jackson's album; so you're going to have to stay in prison for another 5 years. You're clearly not rehabilitated." :-)

Historically, that's what it really meant; some people never got out of the joint for relatively minor crimes. Is that just?

Hint: no.

Men getting raped..

[taxevader]

...is seen as funny by society at large. Why is this? Its because a) they are criminals b) they are men If there was any place where women knowingly got raped there would be an outcry, investigation etc etc. But as it is, it is an accepted, and even condoned by society. After all, these are criminals, they should pay their debt. Rape is rape, no matter who it happens to.