Body Cameras Research Paper

With all the police brutality claims now there is so much controversy over police officers wearing body cameras. Some people feel that the officers should wear the cameras so that there will be a video of everything happening and there will be proof of what is going on between the officers and the civilians. Other people do not want the cameras because it violates people’s privacy. This has been an ongoing debate for a while now. In this essay I want to show some of the benefits for the body cameras. The cameras have many positive features to them a few of them would be that the videos give solid evidence to hold people accountable for their actions, people are more aware of their actions when the cameras are present so there have been fewer complaints made, also, the use of force has also decreased since police have started using the cameras.

One of the biggest things that body cameras offer is the video evidence that they give. With this evidence the officers and the civilians can be held accountable for their own actions. Before the body cameras, there were dash cams. With those they only were able to record what happened in front of the cop car so there would be no proof of what happened away from the car. So if there was a complaint they would have to go on “he said, she said” and that runs the risk of whoever was in the wrong getting away with the crime. This is what happened in 2012 with a case from New Jersey. The police officers assaulted a man and were able to get away with it. The officers did not show the second squad cars dash cam which showed …show more content…
As with anything new the cameras still have things that need to be worked on but the good outweighs the bad. With being able to show solid evidence to hold someone accountable for their actions to being able to decrease complaints and use of force from officers are just a few of the positive aspects of the