The Importance Of Police Body-Worned Camera System

In recent years, developments in the technologies used by law enforcement organizations have been continually accelerating. Technology, from less-lethal devices, such as TASER, and forensic evidence to advanced crime analysis, aims to shape law enforcement and has redefined multiple aspects of policing (White, 2014). One of the most recent technologies is police body-worn camera system, which has already received extensive attentions among media and policing executives in 2013 (White, 2014). In the United States, a body-worn camera program is widely implemented across the country and seen as one of the Metropolitan Police Department’s ”top five priorities” over the past few years (Vorndran et al., 2014). Although proponents and opponents have made many claims about body-worn camera system, there have been …show more content…
Many agencies have adopted this technology, while others consider that the decision should not be made lightly. Once the body-worn cameras program is deployed, it will be hard to stop it. According to the existing empirical evidence, this technology can help to reduce police misconduct and improve resolution of citizen complaints, which might bring greater accountability, transparency and fairness. However, many practical issues are raised to law enforcement agencies. First of all, numerous cost of the technology and data storage is one of the main obstacles. Besides this, agencies are face with the issue of balancing transparency and privacy rights. There is no doubt that with the increasing of transparency, both citizens and officers privacy rights will be reduced. If the implementation of body-worn cameras is imperative, it is necessary for agencies to develop methods to solve this issues. Since there is not enough evidence regarding the effectiveness and impact of body-worn cameras, it is difficult to determine whether it is positive or negative, or whether should police adopt