Watching the Police: Will Two-Way Surveillance Reduce Crime?

An anonymous reader writes "As surveillance technologies have matured in both their sophistication and usage, some are starting to ask the question: is it time we start using them to watch the watchers? The proliferation of dashboard cameras has reduced liability costs, provided valuable evidence, and made police officers safer. The next progression would naturally be for the camera to move out of the car and onto the officer's uniform itself. In The Verge appears a fascinating report about the company behind the non-lethal stun guns that have become commonplace around the world, Taser International, which has set out to transform policing once again – this time, with Axon Flex, a head-mounted camera with a twelve-hour battery life that officers can use to record interactions. The device is constantly on, but it only captures video of the thirty seconds before its wearer begins using it, and then both video and audio while police are speaking to a citizen. Footage is then uploaded to a cloud-based service where it can be accessed by the police department. It includes an audit trail to reveal who has accessed the information and when."

Comments

Just say'in

[Anonymous Coward]

The device is constantly on, but it only captures video of the thirty seconds before its wearer begins using it, and then both video and audio while police are speaking to a citizen.

But not when beating the citizen? Or violating his rights?

Re:The ONLY Way this should work is...

[dkleinsc]

Or strategically moving to a location where the camera can't see. For example, look up the dashboard footage of the shooting of John T Williams in Seattle: SPD officer Ian Burke sees Williams committing the heinous crime of walking across a street, yells at him to stop, leaves the camera frame, and then shoots Williams 4 times in the back and side. In the ensuing investigation, Burke successfully claimed self defense and avoided all criminal responsibility, even though he was the only person at the scene who did anything remotely violent. This even though the eyewitnesses (including one that courageously confronted Burke immediately) said that Williams presented no danger to them or to Burke.