This paper will focus on the law enforcement profession as it is seen by the public through the headlines of numerous newspapers and news station concerning their conduct in public over the past years. From the Freddie Gray death in Baltimore, Maryland, to the Eric Garner in Staten Island, New York, and finally the Michael Brown shooting death in Ferguson, Missouri. Each case involved different certain circumstances leading up to the incident, nevertheless the public at large, especially the African-American community is demanding more oversight of the police departments. The major issue within these communities is the amount of force the officers are using and the lack of transpartity within the agencies. These issues have created racial
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Many agencies throughout the United States have equipped their vehicles with cameras, as well as their officers with body cameras. By introducing cameras into law enforcement that it holds the officer more accountable for their actions, subsequently cutting down on the amount of complaints filed against an officer. Bills introduced into legislation, as well as the ACLU are requesting that certain scerinos be excluded from the cameras. Legislation and the ACLU are looking to restrict when and where the cameras can be activated and the amount retention time an agency should hold the footage before it is deleted or archived. This goes against all the talks in the beginning about officers wearing cameras. Nevertheless, I noticed that a study conducted by Rialto, California during the time of February 2012 and February 2013, in which 54 randomly selected officers were selected to either wear a body camera or not to wear the cameras while on shift. Of the 988 shifts examined by researchers, officers wore body cameras in 489 and did not in 499. Researchers compared the number of use-of-force incidents and complaints against police in the trial period to previous years. In Feeny’s words, “the results, in my opinion were impressive with the reduction of use of force and citizen complaints.” (Feeny, Body Cameras, …show more content…
Where the department is predominately white and the community they serve is African-American. Technology is moving and is making its way into law enforcement. The problems departments are having is, how can we use technology to our advantage. One article I found titled “Surveillance in Society, The Eyes of Law Enforcement in the New Panopticon: Police-Community Racial Asymmetry and the Use of Surveillance Technology” discusses this topic. The article indicates that people in society when “central inspection or the notion that citizens’ behaviors can be better controlled when they are surveilled from a central location.” (Hendrix, Pg. 53) So what do we do to protect the citizens in that community and the officers? Where the agency is not racially diverse, we use technology to everyone’s benefit. Now I’m not saying that agencies can use this technology so as not to make their department more racially diverse, I am saying that until the department can become more diverse through aggressive hiring, they should look at alternatives. These alternatives being cameras. Cameras that are accessible from a remote location sends a message that even though the police are not in the area, they are still watching. It sends the same message to the officers in the area that we are watching your conduct as
Many agencies throughout the United States have equipped their vehicles with cameras, as well as their officers with body cameras. By introducing cameras into law enforcement that it holds the officer more accountable for their actions, subsequently cutting down on the amount of complaints filed against an officer. Bills introduced into legislation, as well as the ACLU are requesting that certain scerinos be excluded from the cameras. Legislation and the ACLU are looking to restrict when and where the cameras can be activated and the amount retention time an agency should hold the footage before it is deleted or archived. This goes against all the talks in the beginning about officers wearing cameras. Nevertheless, I noticed that a study conducted by Rialto, California during the time of February 2012 and February 2013, in which 54 randomly selected officers were selected to either wear a body camera or not to wear the cameras while on shift. Of the 988 shifts examined by researchers, officers wore body cameras in 489 and did not in 499. Researchers compared the number of use-of-force incidents and complaints against police in the trial period to previous years. In Feeny’s words, “the results, in my opinion were impressive with the reduction of use of force and citizen complaints.” (Feeny, Body Cameras, …show more content…
Where the department is predominately white and the community they serve is African-American. Technology is moving and is making its way into law enforcement. The problems departments are having is, how can we use technology to our advantage. One article I found titled “Surveillance in Society, The Eyes of Law Enforcement in the New Panopticon: Police-Community Racial Asymmetry and the Use of Surveillance Technology” discusses this topic. The article indicates that people in society when “central inspection or the notion that citizens’ behaviors can be better controlled when they are surveilled from a central location.” (Hendrix, Pg. 53) So what do we do to protect the citizens in that community and the officers? Where the agency is not racially diverse, we use technology to everyone’s benefit. Now I’m not saying that agencies can use this technology so as not to make their department more racially diverse, I am saying that until the department can become more diverse through aggressive hiring, they should look at alternatives. These alternatives being cameras. Cameras that are accessible from a remote location sends a message that even though the police are not in the area, they are still watching. It sends the same message to the officers in the area that we are watching your conduct as