The first problem that came to me a week ago was the problem of police discrimination. Of course, discrimination has been around as long as humans and this is a problem that is out of out reach, but can be lessened with the idea of body cameras. The idea of body camera is attaching cameras to the uniforms of police officers as a mean to monitor their behaviors on their patrols. It has been enforced in some cities or states in the United States such as Ferguson where a fatal shooting happened to a young African American boy. Body cameras are a great way to monitor both the behaviors of patrolling officers and the civilians in that patrolled area. According to a research conducted by the Police Foundation Executive Fellow, Chief Tony Farrar, it was evident that the body cameras caused a 50% reduction of excessive force and after the 12 months of experiment, the citizens’ complaints have gone down by 90%. Through this study in California, the usage of body cameras can significantly impact the behaviors of police officers to be more kind and gentle rather than the rough bullies they are depicted to be. Although it may change their behaviors, they are still enforcing the law onto us the same way with less force.
Body cameras can promote fair analysis of “suspicious” targets that are colored minus the discrimination when these targets are going through airports or areas where they do body checks. Some people are critically offended when they are being searched and others will waste a lot of time for the judgment of the officers. With cameras on the police force, prejudice will be reduced and the body searching or luggage searching will solely be on the level of suspicion that the suspect is showing or search every other 5 people coming through.
Another problem that I came up with was police brutality, which also can be helped by the usage of body cameras. Body cameras will monitor the level of force the officers use to prevent future cases of police brutality. According to same research above, there was a huge reduction of police office using excessive force. With police officers monitored by higher ups, they will be more likely to act with less discrimination and a more justified level of force.
In addition to body cameras, streetlights can also have cameras to capture videos of the surrounding areas. I believe video evidences are the most solid evidence there is and can be used to prevent people from committing crimes at specific spots and officers can avoid those spots on their routinely patrols. Some may argue the idea of body cameras and cameras in the streets to be an overwhelming amount of power for the government to have and have eyes on us all the time. The people of the neighborhoods can elect people they trust to work for the government to monitor these cameras to have an involvement in their community, but of course the government will monitor those that were vouched by the communities. The cameras will help us reduce crime rates and police brutality.
http://www.policefoundation.org/content/body-worn-cameras-police-use-force
I agree that body cameras are the answer to most of the issues that arose recently in Ferguson. The big problem with the Ferguson case was that the media and the eyewitnesses could not get their facts straight, which cause massive conflict during the aftermath of the indictment. Had there been some physical evidence, much of the rioting may have been prevented. I agree that while body cameras can reduce complaints and problems, it is important to note that arming all officers with body cameras is an expensive endeavor and must be budgeted along with other officer needs. Street cameras are very expensive in terms of cost and labor and does not help in the cause of police brutality if police already have body cameras. That money could be used to better educate police officers and give them more training. Better education by the police and regular practice on how to handle stress related situations should also be a solution that is compounded with body cameras to make the police force more effective and unbiased. Discrimination is unlikely to ever be completely erased and body cameras will not stop officers from allegedly being racist. They could easily say a specific person is acting suspicious and warrant them a quick search. Especially in a place like New York where everyone is in a rush, many people would object to searching 1 in 5 people in a quick paced setting.