Pressure rises on US police to use video cameras after Ferguson debacle
Forces across the US are looking at ways they can film their actions after the controversial shooting of a black teenager by a white officer
PUBLISHED : Saturday, 29 November, 2014, 3:20am
UPDATED : Saturday, 29 November, 2014, 3:20am
McClatchy News in Washington
Police officers wear what appear to be body cameras as they confront protesters near the Ferguson police station. Photo: SCMP
The fallout of the Ferguson debacle will include more police officers across the US wearing cameras as part of their uniforms.
Legislators including Senator Claire McCaskill, of Missouri, are talking of federal funding for the project. Researchers are digging into data about costs and benefits. Cities that have already equipped police with cameras are being asked how it works from those considering the move.
"The officers have welcomed them, and I think the community has, too," April Harris, treasurer of the Greensboro Police Foundation in North Carolina, said, recalling that "before we had the cameras, we had here in Greensboro a couple of police situations where it was, 'He said, she said'."
The Greensboro Police Foundation raised more than US$100,000 to buy police cameras.
While the fundraising drive was a success, the need for it also underscored one of the challenges, and that is cost.
The cameras' use, moreover, can open up unanticipated conflicts. Harris noted, for instance, that there were now questions about whether the video taken by a camera worn by an officer amounted to a personnel record that was exempt from public release.
There is no doubt, though, that the shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown by Ferguson policeman Darren Wilson is prompting much more interest in cameras that record an ambiguous encounter.
"Since Ferguson, the agencies will look more closely to see, 'How can we make this happen?' but also, 'How can we do it right?'," Lindsay Miller, senior research associate at the Police Executive Research Forum, said.
Miller, co-author of a Justice Department-funded study of police cameras, noted that, even before Ferguson, the cameras often first deployed "in smaller and mid-sized agencies" were being introduced by larger agencies.
Charles Katz, an Arizona State University criminology associate professor, agreed that the Ferguson incident would accelerate the use of body-worn cameras.
No good public estimate exists for how many US forces use cameras. The agencies that do use them vary widely in size and sophistication.
The two-officer police department in Miller's hometown in rural Missouri uses body-worn cameras, and so, as part of a test run, does the Los Angeles Police Department.
The Police Executive Research Forum study included a survey with responses from 254 agencies, 63 of which reported using body-worn cameras.
The analysts identified benefits that include better documentation of evidence, increased police accountability and a reduction in the use of force.
A year-long study of the Mesa Police Department in Arizona found that camera-wearing officers had 40 per cent fewer complaints, and 75 per cent fewer use-of-force complaints, than without cameras. Camera police in Rialto, California, had an 88 per cent complaint drop.
But with the benefits come costs and questions, as individual cameras can cost up to US$1,200.
Private fundraising has been one solution, with Los Angeles raising nearly US$1.3 million in private funds for officer cameras, which began as a pilot project last January. Another solution could be federal aid, of the sort being suggested by McCaskill.
Other questions, beyond funding, include how much discretion officers should have to turn off the cameras, how the privacy interests of victims would be protected, and how the video recording of encounters would change behaviour of citizens and officers alike.
The questions are prompting states and municipalities to come up with different answers, on policies ranging from how long recordings are stored to who has a say in the recording.
