If you could implement a policy that ends the dispute between defendant’s and law enforcement’s inconsistencies between their own sides of the story, Would you? If there was a way that the entire court population and the jurors could see exactly what happened, wouldn’t that help serve true justice? The answer to those questions could be body-mounted police cameras. With any new technology used by law enforcement, you have to look at the policies associated with it. We will be looking at a number of different policies and procedures that pertain to body cams and we will be drafting our own potential policies to be implemented in a real police department.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) there are about 765,000 sworn officers in the United States of America (Reaves, 2011). In 2008, of these 765,000 about 1.5% of these officers find themselves in a police brutality situation (BJS, n.d.). This is a very small portion of the overall police contact that happens in a day but are publicized to be more prominent than they actually are. Although this problem is small, it is still severe and needs remedied. Potentially, we could resolve issues with the implementation of body cams in some or all of the police departments across the United States.
In a recent look into body cams, it was found that officers wearing body cams had .07 complaints per 1,000 encounters compared to .7 complaints per 1,000 encounters with officers not wearing body cams (Ariel, 2014). With the use of more recent data it was also found that there was a 50% reduction in the use of force for an officer wearing a body camera (Roy, 2014). It sounds nice, in theory, that body cams will automatically reduce police misconduct crime by 50%, but there are problems with just mounting police officers with cameras. Stanley states that 25% of all police departments in the USA are already using body cameras. Stanley (2013) also mentions that body-mounted police cameras can be an invasion of privacy, which is a large problem that we will be looking into. With strong policy implemented, it can turn into a “win-win.” Together we will research the benefits, downfalls, and costs of body-mounted police cameras and develop policies that could be implemented in an actual police agency.
Body cameras are also referred to as “BWV” which stands for body worn video. Much of the literature refers to them in this way. These BWVs are an on-officer recording camera that lets you see what is exactly happening in the field. These cameras are outfitted with video and audio, so you not only see what transpired, but also can hear the actual dialogue. There are a variety of manufacturers who make BWVs and, based on the manufacturer, the prices vary. The price point is between $400 and $1700 (Walker, 2013). Throughout our research, we found the most popular brand among law enforcement is Taser Axon.
The aim of outfitting law enforcement with BWVs is to cut down on misconduct performed by officers. Brutality is at the top of the list when it comes to police misconduct. Of the 14 million contacts officers encounter across the United states in a year, 1.5% of those contacts result in a police brutality claim (BJS, n.d.). Police brutality is one of the hot topics when it comes to law enforcement due to recent events like Ferguson, which will be discussed later in the paper.
There are many other types of misconduct that could also be eradicated by the use of BWVs. Not all officers of the law are performing misconduct, there are only a select few who make a bad name for the rest of law enforcement. In a year, 6.6% of officers will have a claim of misconduct against them. City police departments have the most complaints filed against them at an average of 9.5% of the officers, and State police have the fewest average of complaints at 1.3% (BJS, n.d.). This could be due to the number of contacts each department encounters per year. No matter what department the misconduct occurs in, BWVs could reduce or even eliminate all of those officers who perform said misconduct.
When the “bad” officers are removed from the force two major outcomes will result. First, the police department will run more efficiently, with less complaints and/or lawsuits. Roughly an average lawsuit that affects a police department ends up costing around $600,000. If body cameras can eliminate even one of these lawsuits from taking place then it will pay for the startup cost associated with implementing BWVs in a department. Second, the community will trust law enforcement more and law enforcement will be able to build stronger ties to the community. These are the two intended consequences we believe implementing a strong policy involving body cameras will produce.
