Police brutality statistics
apparently fell by 60 percent in one California town when all police officers
were required to wear portable video cameras while on the job.
In a related report by The
Inquisitr, a video of a CHP officer punching a fallen woman 11 times in the
face went viral after it was filmed by a passing driver. But another video was
even worse since it showed Albuquerque police shooting two suspects in the
back, never mind when a homeless man was shot in the back.
The city of Rialto, California
did a controlled study where the city’s 70 police officers were required to
wear a video camera that recorded all of their interactions with the public. In
2012 alone complaints against Rialto police officers fell by 88 percent, while
use of force by officers fell by almost 60 percent.
Rialto Police Chief William A.
Farrar says it is not just his officers that behaved better when a camera was
known to be watching:
“When you put a camera on a
police officer, they tend to behave a little better, follow the rules a little
better. And if a citizen knows the officer is wearing a camera, chances are the
citizen will behave a little better.”
Cities like New York,
Albuquerque, Fort Worth, and Oakland are considering implementing police
cameras and even England is starting to adopt the practice with small-scale
trial programs.
Of course, one huge negative to
outfitting every cop with a camera is public privacy concerns. But even the
American Civil Liberties Union, which is usually quick to protest anything that
might infringe upon personal privacy, says that the notable drop in police
brutality statistics is worth it:
“Although we generally take a
dim view of the proliferation of surveillance cameras in American life, police
on-body cameras are different because of their potential to serve as a check
against the abuse of power by police officers.”
This is important because the
Bureau of Justice Statistics once claimed the police brutality “rate was 6.6
complaints per 100 full-time sworn officers,” with 84 percent of these
complaints targeting larger police departments. Out of the complaints that were
officially investigated, “eight percent of the complaints were officially
sustained, that is, there was sufficient evidence to justify disciplinary
action against the officer or officers.” This means that for their report the
police brutality statistics recorded a rate of 0.528 percent, mean that about
one in 200 police officers actually did commit an action requiring discipline
in that time frame.
Do you think cop should be
required to wear video cameras at times in order to prevent police brutality,
or do you consider the privacy concerns more important?
