Essay On Police Body Cameras

Police body cameras make it more difficult for police officers, and they will not do their job as well wearing the body cameras. Some people might believe that they actually improve how the police officers work, and that it is fair for the victims. However they do not think much about the police officers, but they only mainly focus on the victims. Justin Ready and Jacob Young, two Arizona School of Criminology assistant professors, conducted an experiment that states key findings like, “officers who did not wear body cameras conducted more ‘Stop-and-frisks’ and made more arrests than officers who wore the video cameras. Officers who did not wear cameras performed 9.8% more stop-and-frisks and made 6.9% more arrests” (Kelsh). With that statement we should not have police body cameras because they are not helping police out in any way.
Others might think that it improves your memory because you are seeing what occurred. Something they do not consider is that it can also cause you to second-guess what you know. Bill Lewinski, a police psychology expert, quotes that “according to the U. S. Supreme Court in Graham v. Connor, an officer’s decisions in tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving situations are not to be judged with the ‘20/20 vision of hindsight’,” Lewinski states. So he is basically saying that even though you might have a body camera, it does not take place of what you actually see or do not see. Another thing that he mentions is, “in the real-world aftermath of a shooting, camera footage provides an almost irresistible temptation for reviewers to play the coulda-shoulda game” (Lewinski). In this Lewinski is saying that you almost change what you thought happened, to what could have, or should have happened. After stating those examples it shows that watching those videos from the body camera can change your thoughts on what really