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Study: Police Body-Cams Reduce Unacceptable Use of Force
An anonymous reader writes: Incidents like the Michael Brown case have recently put police body-worn cameras into the public consciousness, but they're not a new idea to criminology experts. In fact, researchers at Cambridge began a study in 2012 using law enforcement in Rialto, California as a test bed. Their results are now in: "The experiment showed that evidence capture is just one output of body-worn video, and the technology is perhaps most effective at actually preventing escalation during police-public interactions: whether that's abusive behavior towards police or unnecessary use-of-force by police." The simple knowledge that both parties are being watched puts a damper on violence. "During the 12-month Rialto experiment, use-of-force by officers wearing cameras fell by 59% and reports against officers dropped by 87% against the previous year's figures." This was enough for the city of Rialto to decide it wants to move forward with body-worn cameras; hopefully the study will encourage other police departments as well.
"People react differently when they know they are being watched".
What this cop was too stupid to realize was, the response to his comment is:
YES! THAT'S EXACTLY WHY WE WANT THE CAMERAS.
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Those lower percentages scare me because it's clear proof that a majority of police officers abuse their powers.
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So cops don't beat up perps because they're being watched, interesting. How about the cops learn to control themselves like normal human beings?
Yep - seems a no-brainer to me. Anyone who ever went to school knows that the bully isn't going to hammer the snot out of you while the teacher is watching. He waits until Teach has gone back inside to grade paper!
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I cycle in a major metro area and started wearing a highly visible helmet camera for liability reasons.
I also noticed (anecdata!) that the camera tended to have a calming effect on motorists near me as I would (for example) turn to look over my shoulder and the camera profile was visible.
Not all motorists are calmed when they see my camera, but it seems many are (for example, they'll ease off tailgating me and shadowing my blind spots).
I will admit that I am pretty quick to shout heads up and escalate the verbal stakes (e.g. cursing) when motorists honk if I (for example) legally and quickly take the full lane, but I only do so in the interest of encouraging safer driving and cycling. I have zero interest in provoking a fight.
YMMV
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If you need to record her to change her behavior, your relationship is doomed. I wonder what she does when you aren't around.
I really don't care about violence against police, but if this bullet points helps convince PD's to adopt cameras then super!
What an ignorant statement you offer. Violence against police is why police react so forcefully. According to the FBI nearly 10% of police officers who get shot are shot with their own gun. That is why unarmed people who try to get into a wrestling match with cops get shot, because the cops are very afraid of losing control of their own gun.
People who are compliant tend not to get shot. People who react violently are far more likely to get shot. So if you actually care about people getting shot you should care about violence against police.
Or: perps don't go into physical confrontation with police when faced with the fact that there will be video evidence of the event.
Having a camera there makes no difference to the perps - as you call them. The perps were always at a disadvantage because the cops can say anything and justify anything. In other words, the cops are in effect a "camera" because their word is considered fact in court.
The cop says that the suspect put up a fight, then the suspect put up a fight. Cops says the suspect resisted arrest, then it is fact that the suspect resisted arrest.
And even when there are witnesses to the contrary, the cop's word supersedes the witnesses.
Cops rule; public drools.
So, your logic makes no sense.
and reports against officers dropped by 87%
While most people on here are focusing on the police portion, the civilian portion is more damning. It shows the amount of crap police have to put up with by people who think they'll file a brutality report so they can not be held responsible for their actions.
I don't have the link, but some on here will remember the video of the woman who was in the back of a police car yelling and screaming for the police to stop hitting her without realizing a camera was recording the whole thing. When she claimed police brutality, the video was shown and the charges were thrown out.
While there is certainly some police abuse going on, there are much more claims by people of police abuse where none exists. Just like dashboard cameras, it works both ways so when people claim they weren't doing anything when they were shot, the camera will show them reaching for their gun (see the most recent shooting in Missouri though we don't have video of the incident).
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Or, as mentioned in the summary, the customer is not being abusive towards the officer as often and thus avoids escalation to where the officer feels that they need to up the force.
Brown was shot because he escalated the situation to a "high risk arrest" by going for the cop's gun. Period. That is the single factor that dominated all that followed. According to the FBI 10% of the cops who get shot are shot with their own gun after losing control of it. So go for an cop's gun and the rules of engagement radically change. You will not be allowed to get close enough for a wrestling match. Once you go for the gun your not just some guy who stole some cigarettes and shoved a store clerk. You are according to police training and the law a lethal threat if you try to get close rather than comply and get on the ground.
Very often the viral videos you see of police brutality does not show what led up to the transgression, so, a portion of the cases may be misrepresented by way of missing context.
On the other hand, the Police, being the trained professionals, should be able to handle "abuse"... professionally.
Also, 'what led up to it' is irrelevant in many cases. The fact I called your mother a whore 5 days ago, 5 hours ago, 5 minutes ago, or 5 seconds ago doesn't make it right for you to choke me to death, shoot me, or tase me.
The handgun part is what has to change. We need to stop promoting them as a must-have item to walk the streets by playing on machismo or exaggerating threats, and/or we need to make them harder to get, or we need to render them obsolete with some better technology. I think we worship them too much for there to be hope of anything but the latter, though it seems a long way off.
Nullius in verba
But not excessive force, and not when someone is saying they can't breath. Certainly not that choke hold which was against policy.
Except that the "choke hold" had nothing to do with Garner's death. His death was caused by lying on the ground with a man kneeling on his back. As clearly evidenced by the fact that he was still able to talk. If he was being choked, he wouldn't have been able to move air through his neck at all. Because he was being crushed instead, he could move air *out* but not in. He could speak but not breathe. Later, when he was moved into a position where he could have breathed, he had difficulty because he was asthmatic. Then he had a heart attack because his heart was working harder to move oxygen around his body. Then he died.
When you talk about the "choke hold," you distract from the real issues. They should not have thrown an obese man onto a hard surface. Given that he was lying on a hard surface, they shouldn't have kneeled on his back. Those are areas where a policy change and training could help. Yet instead of concentrating on the tragedy, your narrative tries to assign blame. By doing so, it distracts from taking actions that could prevent similar tragedies in the future. Instead of looking for policy changes, you are focusing on blaming the officer. If you succeed, people will say that the choke hold was already banned and no policy changes would be made.
Every time you say "choke hold," you open yourself to debunking. The proof that there was an illegal choke hold goes like this: the officer's arm was near Garner's neck; Garner said he couldn't breathe; therefore, the officer's arm was choking Garner; NY police ban a particular hold that can be described as a choke hold; therefore, the officer was engaged in an illegal choke hold; Garner died; therefore, his death was caused by an illegal choke hold. However, Garner saying that he couldn't breathe proves that he was *NOT* being choked at that time. Police claim that the officer's arm was not in a position to apply the particular hold that was banned.
That's the problem with false narratives. They don't hold up under scrutiny.
Of course, there's another problem now that will likely prevent policy changes. The deaths of the two officers leave the police much less likely to compromise on new training to prevent incidents like this in the future. They're dug in now and unlikely to engage rationally.