Body Cameras Disadvantages
Body cameras are a highly debated topic and depending on what side of the fence that you are, there are valid advantages and disadvantages to them. An advantage that law enforcement personnel feel that the use of body cameras brings is that “respondents are less likely to use violence” (Baum, 2015). This is also an advantage for law enforcement administrators because that means less use-of-force investigations and that leads to less negative publicity as well as lawsuits. The public’s perspective of law enforcement wearing body cameras is that they feel it ensures that the police officer is less likely to use excessive force. Another advantage to wearing body cameras is that it will back up the police officer in the decisions and actions
…show more content…
Most departments have very tight budgets and purchasing a body camera for every one of their commissioned personnel is extremely costly. A department also has to take into account the cost of maintenance that it takes to constantly update the software and calibrate them to ensure that they are working properly. Storing all of the camera footage for every commissioned person from every shift of every day will fill up a department’s server very fast. More importantly is the chain of custody issues and ensuring that the footage is properly uploaded and unaltered (Erstad, 2016). Another disadvantage to body cameras is that the court system is becoming too dependent on what the footage shows in making their decision to prosecute the case rather than the officer’s integrity and great reputation of making good cases. A disadvantage to body cameras for the public is that most people do not want to be filmed and see this as an invasion of privacy during their encounter with law enforcement (Baum, 2015). A trend that I am starting to see across the country is that S.W.A.T. teams are starting to wear them on tactical calls. As one of the Team Leaders of my department’s S.W.A.T. team, I along with my leadership are strongly against the wearing of body cameras during the issuance of high risk search warrants. The main reason why we feel that this would be a disadvantage is because it
Most departments have very tight budgets and purchasing a body camera for every one of their commissioned personnel is extremely costly. A department also has to take into account the cost of maintenance that it takes to constantly update the software and calibrate them to ensure that they are working properly. Storing all of the camera footage for every commissioned person from every shift of every day will fill up a department’s server very fast. More importantly is the chain of custody issues and ensuring that the footage is properly uploaded and unaltered (Erstad, 2016). Another disadvantage to body cameras is that the court system is becoming too dependent on what the footage shows in making their decision to prosecute the case rather than the officer’s integrity and great reputation of making good cases. A disadvantage to body cameras for the public is that most people do not want to be filmed and see this as an invasion of privacy during their encounter with law enforcement (Baum, 2015). A trend that I am starting to see across the country is that S.W.A.T. teams are starting to wear them on tactical calls. As one of the Team Leaders of my department’s S.W.A.T. team, I along with my leadership are strongly against the wearing of body cameras during the issuance of high risk search warrants. The main reason why we feel that this would be a disadvantage is because it