As I said in my next post' date=' the overwhelming majority of officers know the law and follow proper procedure. However, you'd be extremely naïve if you didn't admit that there are undoubtedly some that don't. For those that do, this will change nothing. If anything, it'll safeguard them from bogus brutality claims and the like.[/quote']

 

No one would argue that there aren't some bad police officers. Police are humans. Humans are not perfect.

In both cases it potentially stifles creativity.

 

Now if your company wants a robot instead of you then maybe they will be a winner in the long run.

 

And as to officers, hiring yes men and yes women (because that is the direction it will go in that line of work) has the potential to be really bad.

 

I think you make a good point. On the other hand, I think more transparency when it comes to the government is a good thing. If an officer is being unjustly maligned by department politics, could audio/video being available to the public put a check on that? Is there a particular way of using some type of audio/video that provides accountability without undermining individual officer discretion? Perhaps if the equipment is only turned on during interaction with the public or the audio/video is kept sealed or only seen during third-party mediation where the officer would have some sort of representation.

I don't know anything about law school (except I like beating up on lawyers) but your paper sounds too broad if you are covering all those issues and trying to incorporate the lapel camera issue.

 

I guess I would have to know more about the writing guidelines?

 

I'm confused? Cops should embrace this, it eliminates all the exaggerated and false complaints.

 

Why would any officer be against this, unless they knew they may be breaking some rules.

In general terms, I would like everyone to imagine being at work and having every interaction on video/audio?

 

Private companies should do this, right? One could only assume almost every employee would be much more productive and if they weren't the boss could fire them.

 

Think about this everyone, do you want your every action at work documented with video and audio?

 

Should we do it for teachers, coaches, school administrators? If no, why not?

 

Where do we draw the line?

 

Every private company has this right and some do? But are we really comparing an accountant and the officers who are suppose to serve and protect.

No one would argue that there aren't some bad police officers. Police are humans. Humans are not perfect.

 

I'm with UK on this. If anything I think this helps officers much more than it hurts them. Weeding out any bad cops is a good thing. But I'm guessing that is a very small minority like any other profession.

I'm with UK on this. If anything I think this helps officers much more than it hurts them. Weeding out any bad cops is a good thing. But I'm guessing that is a very small minority like any other profession.

 

I agree. But I think they are used for other things than to weed out bad cops, as others has stated it protects the officers (or anyone else who wears them). It's easy to say that a police officer did something wrong, and with no proof the accuser could get a nice pay day, if anything to prevent an expensive court case. But the officer will still have that over his head, did he or didn't he?

 

I have one I wear at one of my jobs, it protects everyone being recorded, but it protects me (or anyone else that wears one) from people lying about what happened. Just the fact that people know they are being recorded will decrease the number of people coming back and lying, or filing a false report.

I'll present a problem here. Money.

 

How do you expect to pay for these? Some police depts are so strapped for money they haven't given raises in several years. Some have poor equipment already. How do they afford these?

I'll say this. Laws and policies can be interpreted different ways, otherwise there would be no criminal attorneys. Unfortunately the population as a whole expect officers to know the Law book, KRS or other states, backwards and forwards as well as knowing a 4" think policy manual, and be able to recall ALL of it in the heat of the moment.

 

The fact of the matter is the field doesn't typicall pay enough for someone who is capable of that kind of intellect. Most officers have an associates or bachelors degree and/or a military background. They are human and they make mistakes. Most officers tend to be somewhat intelligent, somewhat athletic and want to help society be a better place.

 

I think the cameras are in general good, but sometimes you can get preoccupied with your camera angle, body mic being on or positioning a suspect to be on camera cause no one can take a cops word for something, and you let your guard down or put yourself in a less safe/tactical position. It's basically like leaving a death letter to your friends and family. To me, most important is the audio as far as complaints and weeding out the bad cops.

No one would argue that there aren't some bad police officers. Police are humans. Humans are not perfect.

 

Most humans can't ruin someone's lives and take their livelihood as easily as police officers either. They have an important job. When the argument that our government makes about surveillance is that it's for our own protection and "if you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about", don't you think it's not that much of a stretch to see those same principles apply to this situation? Even if you don't agree, which is perfectly fine, I'm sure you can follow the logic of some who arrive at this conclusion.

I'll present a problem here. Money.

 

How do you expect to pay for these? Some police depts are so strapped for money they haven't given raises in several years. Some have poor equipment already. How do they afford these?

 

Uhhmm.... have you been keeping up with national news? There's the whole NSA thing, the GPS trackers on cars being taken to the Supreme Court, etc. It appears that there are fair number of departments implementing new technology for surveillance as is.

 

Besides, with the adoption of this policy by more places, the prices would only be driven down further as the demand curve shifted. No one is expecting every police department to go out and get one tomorrow, but to implement it over time.

 

Plus, the standard being used to justify much of this isn't a warrant, which needs probable cause to be issued, it's a much less stringent standard, and the argument for that goes that people don't have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" with their cell phone records.

 

With as many complaints and the amount of unrest that they cause, etc., I don't see why there'd be so much backlash.

I'll say this. Laws and policies can be interpreted different ways, otherwise there would be no criminal attorneys. Unfortunately the population as a whole expect officers to know the Law book, KRS or other states, backwards and forwards as well as knowing a 4" think policy manual, and be able to recall ALL of it in the heat of the moment.

 

The fact of the matter is the field doesn't typicall pay enough for someone who is capable of that kind of intellect. Most officers have an associates or bachelors degree and/or a military background. They are human and they make mistakes. Most officers tend to be somewhat intelligent, somewhat athletic and want to help society be a better place.

 

I think the cameras are in general good, but sometimes you can get preoccupied with your camera angle, body mic being on or positioning a suspect to be on camera cause no one can take a cops word for something, and you let your guard down or put yourself in a less safe/tactical position. It's basically like leaving a death letter to your friends and family. To me, most important is the audio as far as complaints and weeding out the bad cops.

 

Respectfully disagree. If an officer says, "stop resisting" and there's no video, then whose word do you think a Judge is going to take 9/10 times?

 

I don't think people are asking SWAT teams to have a film crew or anything like that.

 

If anything, some of the commentary on this should show that, for whatever reason, the amount of distrust between the public and officers is higher than it should be.

 

I know there are tons of good, no great, officers who do an outstanding job. But there are a handful of incidents that, whether fair or not, shape people's perspective as well.

 

What would you be more inclined to believe you made the right decision on if you were on a jury:

 

A case where someone accuses an officer of unlawful arrest, assault, etc. when there's no video or audio or one where you have a complete audio-video account?

 

 

As for the underlined and knowing the law inside and out, that's why many states have a 'harmful error' standard when adjudicating cases. It's not really like Law & Order, etc. where the bad guy goes and kills tons of people and gets off on some weird technicality.

 

It isn't as if someone thinks, "hey this camera thing would be a good idea" because they want to see law enforcement officers who do their job well crash and burn.

Most humans can't ruin someone's lives and take their livelihood as easily as police officers either. They have an important job. When the argument that our government makes about surveillance is that it's for our own protection and "if you aren't doing anything wrong' date=' you have nothing to worry about", don't you think it's not that much of a stretch to see those same principles apply to this situation? Even if you don't agree, which is perfectly fine, I'm sure you can follow the logic of some who arrive at this conclusion.[/quote']

 

What's your point? Police are never going to be perfect no matter how many cameras you put on them. I didn't say I was against cameras by the way.

Uhhmm.... have you been keeping up with national news? There's the whole NSA thing' date=' the GPS trackers on cars being taken to the Supreme Court, etc. It appears that there are fair number of departments implementing new technology for surveillance as is. Besides, with the adoption of this policy by more places, the prices would only be driven down further as the demand curve shifted. No one is expecting every police department to go out and get one tomorrow, but to implement it over time. Plus, the standard being used to justify much of this isn't a warrant, which needs probable cause to be issued, it's a much less stringent standard, and the argument for that goes that people don't have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" with their cell phone records. With as many complaints and the amount of unrest that they cause, etc., I don't see why there'd be so much backlash.[/quote']

 

Uhhh...is the NSA a local police department?

 

I don't know what you are talking about in the second part of your post. I still have the same question. There are several police agencies that can't afford to add cameras to every officer. They can't even afford to give officers a raise in the past 5 years. How do you get those departments cameras? Fed money?

What's your point? Police are never going to be perfect no matter how many cameras you put on them. I didn't say I was against cameras by the way.

 

Fair enough.

Uhhh...is the NSA a local police department?

 

I don't know what you are talking about in the second part of your post. I still have the same question. There are several police agencies that can't afford to add cameras to every officer. They can't even afford to give officers a raise in the past 5 years. How do you get those departments cameras? Fed money?

 

Fed money is possible. Less lawsuits could work too if you are a town that's been hit hard by one. I also mentioned implementing it over time (i.e., when it's more affordable... obviously some cities would have the money to do it sooner than others).

 

The idea behind the "demand curve" part was that if more places began requiring it, there'd be more competitors entering the market to produce the supply to meet it. In theory, this would drive prices down. Maybe we could even put some of the assembly places in our own economy if it's bleeding us dry to pay another country to do it.

 

For a magistrate to issue a warrant, they need to have probable cause. If not, then there's recourse in the court systems which isn't there for "counter-terrorism" work of NSA who doesn't have to meet the judicial scrutiny of probable cause as the magistrate who needs probable cause.