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I've had a camera on me in the white collar setting. Cameras were everywhere throughout the office and the known hidden cameras were pointed out like the small ones in certain fire sprinkler fixtures and little peephole things in some of the walls. Some were discovered when an employee was unaware of the camera, did something wrong, and was terminated. Case in point, a white collar worker removed some thrown out office equipment from a trash dumpster they didn't know was being monitored and was fired for theft of company property. Since the dumpster was on company property he had no defense.
Poor little b******d is probably rotting in a dark cell as we speak.
Could happen to anybody.
Could happen to everybody.
Wondering if you think the police should wear body camera.
...
I'm sure if anything goes smoothly a video could be deleted.
I wouldn't see any reason for that video to be held on to.
...
I know the concerns of cost.
Do you think Law enforcement should be required to use Body Cameras?
Sunshine law. You cannot delete the video once it has been created until its holding period is done (7 years in many states, minimum of 30 days in every state).
The costs are not insignificant. $6M+ per year for our police department here. We are one of 60 departments in the area too. Our largest penalty ever in a lawsuit was $3M, half what the cameras would cost for a single year. Heck, the cost of policing for Ferguson has been under $6M and even if the ACLU wins their lawsuit for every penny they are suing for, that's $40M. The cameras will cost more than that in 7 years of use.
I think the real question is whether or not they are effective. You have the Rialto, CA, study, but that was in an area where the rate of false reports against police was extremely high. Albuquerque, NM, deployed cameras in mass as well and had the opposite results of Rialto (complaints went up, incidents of police violence went up, and lawsuits against the dept went up).
The technology is still far behind on batteries, image quality, and even storage technology. Cell phone companies are preemptively moving to ban the cameras from their networks, closing out live download over wireless. That means needing wired network download and the secured (because this is evidence) bandwidth to move hundreds of hours of recordings every night to their storage location.
for: it would certainly help in a situation like what happened in Ferguson, helping to prove that the thug young adult , high on drugs who had just strongarmed a business was truly attacking the police officer
against: unless you have a severely large database, and every minute of the officers tour can be recorded, I don't see it actually working....also would mean a lot of overtime for people to critique the full shift of every officer
New Orleans, for instance, says 1.2 million for body cameras over 5 years. That is a significant reduction vs. paying millions every year in lawsuits.
New Orleans has 1200+ officers. The costs should be closer to $9M/year. (I suspect they are leaving out the cost of CJIS-certified storage. You cannot just grab a hard drive off the shelf and have it conform to CJIS. The body cam companies charge 12.5 cents per GB per month after the first 20 GB. Our dept here figured out that would be nearly $7000/officer/year.)
It protects them from lawsuits. Noone can claim that they were being abused by an officer. That officer will have proof they did nothing wrong.
"And then he swung his baton with his right hand and clubbed me, just to the right of the camera frame."
Or, they wait 30 days to file the lawsuit after the retention period is done...
"See, the police department deleted the footage. They are guilty!"
New Orleans has 1200+ officers. The costs should be closer to $9M/year. (I suspect they are leaving out the cost of CJIS-certified storage. You cannot just grab a hard drive off the shelf and have it conform to CJIS. The body cam companies charge 12.5 cents per GB per month after the first 20 GB. Our dept here figured out that would be nearly $7000/officer/year.)
i think it will become standard for all public servants. i think it will reduce law suits. i think civil law suits have gotten excessive and depend more on the skill of the attorneys than factually what happened.
How many times have we seen the outcome of a lawsuit be totally different from the video that went with it?
Lawsuits will still depend on the skill of the attorney, because a skilled attorney will prevent that video from ever entering court (I'm sure body cam video will raise illegal search and seizure issues among other potential problems with its use in court).
How many times have we seen the outcome of a lawsuit be totally different from the video that went with it?
Lawsuits will still depend on the skill of the attorney, because a skilled attorney will prevent that video from ever entering court (I'm sure body cam video will raise illegal search and seizure issues among other potential problems with its use in court).
that raises a very good point, as I can see that happening quite easily...
cops bust a guy, red handed..its on camera...slam dunk....nope you didn't have a warrant to film the alleged incident
Taser quoted a number similar to New Orleans initially, but that was based on storing the video for 7 days, not the 3 years required by our sunshine law. They also assumed that video used in evidence could be deleted after 1 year.
It can't in our state. It must be stored permanently.
Edit:
Here's another way to think of it. Analysts are anticipating a 300% increase in revenue for Taser due to body cameras. They are only one of the companies supplying body cams, but are expected to capture a lot of the market because they have the best storage solution. Taser's annual revenue is $137.8M. That means their expected increase from only their market share of the body camera market for just departments deploying this year and next is $413M per year. If the New Orleans numbers are right and it is only $200/officer/year, then Taser is going to deploy 2M cameras by the end of next year. There's only 500k officers in the country.
If the numbers our department is figuring are correct, then Taser would be deploying to ~60000 officers by the end of next year, about 12% of the officers in the country. Which one sounds more likely to be reflecting that revenue forecast?
Last edited by marigolds6; 11-13-2014 at 07:55 AM..
Location: Democratic Peoples Republic of Redneckistan
11,078 posts, read 15,074,986 times
Reputation: 3937
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jermaine88
Wondering if you think the police should wear body camera.
It seems like such an easy solution to so many potential problems. It could:
Justify an officers actions,
It could be an deterrent to (or confirm) a abuse of power.
It could deter either party from doing something stupid.
I think it's a win-win.
I have reading about some cities thinking about requiring body cameras on officers.
The argument against it is privacy.
-If a criminal is doing something illegal they don't deserve much privacy.
-If it's something as small as pulling a car over for a broken light, or a speeding ticket, complaints etc. I'm sure if anything goes smoothly a video could be deleted.
I wouldn't see any reason for that video to be held on to.
I know the concerns of cost. I think it would be a helpful investment for some cities.
I would think it would some kind of way to have an camera begin recording once an officer leaves his car, or takes a call for help.
Do you think Law enforcement should be required to use Body Cameras?
As long as the costs are not inflated just because its to a Govt agency,the cost would not be bad at all.
I think it would be a win-win too as long as it was a firable offense to remove the camera while on duty outside the vehicle or remove any data.
I had a dash cam and "back in the day" it was VHS in the trunk..I could remove,review and erase at will will no oversight and it was just used for MY protection only or for prosecution...pretty much worthless to protect the public imho.
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