Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Body cams

Should be a fairly simple job for a high tec company to develop a secure smart card.

This seems to be the root of a lot of the mistrust between LE and the public today, all the secrecy, and lack of disclosure.

We get to see video that is LE friendly many times within days, then have to wait months or years for others.
Picking and choosing what is available to the public seems to not be such good idea from public servants.

It seems as if the only time video seen soon after the event that portrays LE in a bad light, is taken from an outside source never from within the agency.

I think most folks just want the truth, factions of society perhaps not, because of being agenda driven, but most of us do.

I recall there being some opposition to it at first. Anybody still opposed to the use of body cams?

I would not be surprised to see some forces put unarmed/less than lethal only patrols on the street in the near future.

I oppose them simply because they don't do anything but cost everybody more money. Crooked people will always be crooked and the people that think everybody is crooked will always insist the evidence was tampered with.


Travis

Those type of patrols already exist in this country. Next time you see badge, and no gun, ask him what he makes a year.



Dave

It's evidence. It's why we also have juries and not just TRH.

Is he gonna draw me a picture and say "this much"?

Yep. Moments before he drive his segueway to Sbarro.




Travis

Is the video stored on the device or uploaded?

Is the video stored on the device or uploaded?

I posted some things on another thread back in September. I am combining some of those and adding some more comments. Hopefully, this will aid in discussion of the topic.

Body cameras will wind up being great for the police. They can be used to weed out bad apples and they may encourage some to seek employment elsewhere. But, the largest benefit will be an increase in convictions and the reduction in frivolous complaints and lawsuits. But, the people, a/k/a taxpayers, need to understand that it is a lot more expensive than pinning a few hundred dollar body camera on each officer and calling it good. Anybody who thinks that they are getting something for nothing when the grant gods offer them the cameras for free are in for some sticker shock. There also are significant privacy costs to the public.

Body cameras go into a lot of non-public places and will capture a lot of embarrassing images. The police go into people’s bedrooms, bathrooms and closets. The police get involved when something bad happens, so the people involved may be experiencing some of the worst moments of their lives. They may be in various states of undress and/or injured. They may be in the midst of a private indiscretion that is not criminal and really nobody’s business. The cameras are going to get a lot more intimate details than dash cameras in cars parked out on public streets. The dash camera may show the car wreck. The body camera catches the trapped person inside taking his last breaths. (Think of the Idaho rancher or the 6 year old in Louisiana.) Once it is recorded, regardless of the checks built into the system, there is no way to tell where the video ultimately will go.

State public records laws and federal laws such as HIPPA will determine what is a public record and what is required (no discretion) or permitted (discretionary) to be disclosed or what is prohibited from disclosure under applicable law. Most public records laws are not well suited to the digital age. No agency or government should consider body cameras unless it fully understands the public records laws and, in many cases, has them legislatively changed to deal with all the privacy issues involved with body cameras. A number of state legislatures have addressed body camera laws, and changes to public records legislation has been a part of the implementation. Different states have taken different approaches.

One thing most do not realize is that the cost of the cameras themselves is a very tiny cost of implementing a program. There are huge human resource costs to the governments in terms of review, records, storage and legal advice. Ltppowell knows a lot about the hardware and software issues and writes about them, and I won’t address that aspect.

If someone walks in the police station and asks generically for footage from an incident, a records person will have to determine how many were on scene, locate the video(s), review it, redact it, burn it. Who pays for the time or the media? If there are legal issues, mostly involving privacy or public records issues, it may need to be reviewed by counsel for the government before release. When the case goes to trial, the lawyer (assume court appointed here), has a lot of video to review for which the client (the public in the case of court appointed counsel) gets billed. The prosecutor has to review it too. The prosecutor may not get paid more, but you may need more of them. Agencies have that with dash cams as well, but, again, the dash cameras are almost always in a public place (cuts down on public records and privacy issues) and also won't get the most detailed information.

You also may need more police. As front line people involved in recording things, there needs to be an understanding of the public records laws and policy dealing with flagging and preserving. Because there is a need for contemporaneous or end-of-shift cataloguing by officers themselves, the street time of the officers shrinks, which creates potential public safety and/or officer safety issues or runs up the cost of hiring people to replace the lost street time.

The introduction of video cameras also requires the police to become equipment technicians for another piece of technical gear. Instead of just doing the job, they have to do the job and make sure they get it on film. Every technical glitch and every situation not captured results in people arguing that it didn’t happen or that the police conspired to suppress the truth. Thus, add one more thing to the job description.

The cameras also turn police into movie directors. The camera has a perspective that is limited, so a good director tries to capture the most important part for the audience. So, there is a competing interest in getting the best video versus doing the job in a safe and efficient manner. Proper positioning to deal with a situation may be totally different than proper positioning to best CYA or to get the best evidence. Recent officer involved shootings show the difference in perspectives. While the cameras are providing decent before and after video, they often do not capture the exact suspect actions justifying the shot, the actual shot, or impact thereof because the camera is not pointing where the gun is pointing. For example, it will not capture the shot if the camera is mounted in the center of the chest but the shot is taken by an officer who is using cover effectively. You are going to see a wall and get nothing but audio. The naysayers of the world still get their chance to watch the video in their basement a thousand times and say “bad cop.”

Some agencies have thrown cameras on police without considering much of the foregoing. They may look contemporary, but they are just blind. The privacy risks to the public are huge.

Cameras are great for the police. They also are great for gear vendors, and they should provide a lot more employment opportunities within the criminal justice system. That’s all fine. The public wants them and will get the bill. Hopefully, the bill just winds up being money and not a loss of privacy, but I would not hold my breath on the latter.

This post just scratches the surface of issues.