The Pros And Cons Of Police Body Cameras

Police body cameras are quickly becoming a hot topic both in Congress and in articles. There are several opinions on them, but one thing for certain is that they have their benefits and limitations. Three authors use various rhetorical strategies to convince their audience that body cameras should or should not be used.

"Cameras in the Station House" is a peer reviewed article written by no ordinary authors. The contributors and reviewers of this article consist of a state chair man, a criminologist, and two university professors. This article is written by experts of the topic which makes their opinions more reliable and each author's occupation is listed in the article so the audience knows they are reading expert views. Diction play a
strong role in the article. The authors use a mix of heavily connatated words such as "abuse" and "brutality" to strike an instant fear against police officers along with higher-level vocabulary to sounds more credible. This way, the intended audience, the general public and officials of police departments, know these authors are intelligent and will trust their opinion. Strong vocabulary often tricks the audience into siding with the authors even if they do not know what the authors are saying because the authors simply sound right. Richard D. Emery makes a analogy about cameras by comparing them to televised basketball and football instant replay. The audience not only can understand the concept more easily, but the Emery also comes off as a friend for bringing up something that everyone knows and loves and the idea of cameras sounds as relevant to the audience as instant replay is. He then asks a rhetorical strategy followed by an immediate answer. This way, the audience's opinion has already been formed for them by Emery without them knowing which the author did prior to explaining his argument so that the audience is already leaning towards his view as he explains it. Each of the authors also consider an alternative view at the end of their contributions. Doing so not only makes their arguments more supported by proving the alternative views wrong, but also gives the audience more background information as well as build trust in the authors because they appear friendly for each addressing an opposing or alternative view. Through these various strategies and continuous use of connotations and challenging vocabulary throughout the article, these authors convince police department officials and the general public that video taping officers will help to protect civilians from abuse by police.

"Body Cameras Change Human Behavior" is a summary reported by Trevor Hughes who wore a body mounted cameras everyday for months to better understand the use of them by police and report his findings to the public.
Hughes starts out with an anecdote of his typical day and thoughts he experiences due to the camera. For themselves, the audience can feel what it is like to wear a body camera because of the descriptive anecdote that they feel a part of. Hughes then states that he is trying to understand why President Obama wants all police officers to wear these cameras. Not only is Hughes filling the public in on some background information, but he gains credibility for stating the opinion of our President, whose opinion if highly valued by many, and disguises this technique by saying he only wants to understand it. Hughes also reports a great collection of opinions from various, relevant groups. There is a thought on police body cameras from a civilians and police officers' thoughts. All of the opinions Hughes mentions are in favor of police body cameras and there are few arguments against them, besides cost and how they are not always filming or positioned correctly, mentioned. This is done on purpose by Hughes so that the audience has no alternative views to consider and read evidence supporting only one side to body cameras. However, this is not the most useful technique because Hughes can come off inconsiderate of other views or as if there is evidence against body cameras
that he does not want to public to know, making him appear less friendly and trustworthy. To make up for this approach, Hughes reports the famous Rialto, California statistics that show an incredible effect of body cameras and always provide more transparency on a topic since it is tested on and proven. Hughes credibility for discussing the study, an always strong piece of evidence, and quoting the Head Chief of Rialto's local police department. The article ends on a very friendly note as Hughes mentions behaviors everyone can relate to: how we drive, how we treat our colleagues, and how we perform assigned tasks. The audience can understand what Hughes mean because we all deal with driving, colleagues, and assignments. In his last sentence, Hughes states that even though he is human, he can always do better which is a huge appeal to both emotion and credibility for him. First, Hughes comes of humble for mentioning admitting he is not always on his best behavior, which gains him trust and gives the audience something else to relate to. Second, this sentence makes the audience think about their own decisions and possible even makes them experience guilt, so now body cameras seem like an instant fix to cruel human behavior. With all of these techniques, Trevor Hughes convinces the public that body cameras alter people's behaviors for the better and should be used in law enforcement.

"Three Myths About Body Cams" is an article written to not necessarily condemn the use of body cameras by police, but to, as the title suggests, dismiss common myths about body cameras and critique how they have been used so far.
Justin T. Ready and Jacob T.N. Young start their article by listing the benefits of police body cameras to exclude the assumption that they are completely against body cameras. Immediately after, they explicitly state that they are academics and have been studying body cameras for years. This gains them high authority because their views can now be considered exerts' views by their audience, the public. The tone shift from considerate to assertive was quick and was done to convince the audience that these myths are no light issue and must be analyzed. Throughout the majority of the article, Ready and Young address three myths that are mostly logical fallacies. Addressing such fallacies gains credibility for the authors as they thoroughly explain the mistake in each view that the public has most likely not yet considered or noticed and open the public's eyes to the logical explanations. To support their arguments as they combat each myth, Ready and Young have primary evidence from sources they themselves have interviewed. Having logistical evidence helps them to show the validity of their arguments has been proven true. However, the third myth addressed sounds extremely similar to the first myth and just sounds as though the first myth has been
reworded and restated as a different concept. The authors' explanation while addressing the third myth becomes very hard to follow and understand, damaging its validity, and the argument is supported by Rialto's statistical evidence for the opposing view and not Ready and Young's argument. This weakens their argument, but the authors follow up with more of their own primary evidence that is relevant to their argument to provide the public with more evidence supporting their views before they end their article. The arguments in this article are supported heavily by logic, primary evidence, and the credibility the authors set by announcing their years of studying police body cameras. Even though there is a bit of confusion regarding the third myth, Justin T. Ready and Jacob T.N. Young use logic fairly well to show the public that body cameras are not helpful in the ways that myths have made them seem and that their errors should be addressed for their use to be efficient and beneficial.

As discussed, there are several views on the use of body cameras by police officers. Tons of evidence proves body camera strengths and weaknesses, but there other strategies to sway one's opinion using more than logistics and data. It is salient to assiduously scrutinize the credibility, logic and appeal to emotion of a source when reading a source so that one is not easily influenced by the plausible rhetorical strategies used by several authors. This way, validity and relevance can analyzed more accurately.