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Police Body Worn Cameras Essay

2291 Words10 Pages

Police officers are sworn in with the responsibility of serving and protecting the public. Members of the public expect their local police departments to keep their community safe, and protect them from danger and harm. Lately, police-citizen relationships have been strained as a result of problematic police behaviors and citizen encounters. Police use-of-force has become a pressing issue in modern society and has caused distrust and a lack of confidence in law enforcement agencies. Tragedies such as the deaths of Michael Brown, Erick Garner, and Sandra Bland has fueled the public’s outrage and suspicion of local police officers. Police misconduct has motivated new methods in order to improve community policing. The recent up rise in police …show more content…

It has been argued that body-worn cameras will improve organizational goals, and improve police-citizen encounters by fundamentally changing flawed police practices. Police body-worn cameras can reduce use-of-force and citizens’ complaints by simultaneously increasing police and citizen accountability and officer transparency, thus improving the public’s perception of their local police agencies.
In theory, when an officer is sworn in, he or she signs a social contract with all members of society. Ariel et al. (2014) defines “excessive use-of-force by the police [as] when an officer uses more force than necessary/justifiable/or reasonable in the context . . . and unnecessary force is when force is used by an officer, but no force was …show more content…

When officers file reports, “[the] officers are able to characterize suspects’ demeanor, explain what was in the scene of crime, and provide overall crucial details pertaining to the case” (Ariel, 2014, p. 529). Unfortunately for the suspects, officers are not required to document specific details about the interaction that can be crucial to the investigation. For example, “how long the person was stunned with a Taser gun, or how many shots were fired into against an aggressive suspect, or how many times he or she was beaten with a baton before lying down” (Ariel, 2014, p. 522) are not specified in the officer’s report. Omitted vital specifics pertaining to use-of-force incidents has disrupted the link between police officers and the public. As a result, the public now hold an ‘us versus them’

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