Obama Calls For More Police Body Cameras
President Barack Obama on Monday proposed a $263 million program to reform U.S. law enforcement, which includes $75 million that would be allocated to helping police departments purchase 50,000 body cameras. The funds would, over the course of three years, also be used to expand police training.
The announcement came after the president met with his Cabinet, civil rights leaders and law enforcement officials on Monday to discuss the situation in Ferguson, Missouri, where days of protests followed a grand jury decision to not indict Darren Wilson, a white police officer who fatally shot Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old, in August. The White House also said it will create a task force charged with examining “among other issues, how to promote effective crime reduction while building public trust.” “It is a solvable problem, but it is one that unfortunately spikes but fades into background,” Obama said.
Some police officers, though, worry about requiring the use of body cameras. Todd Morris, CEO of BrickHouse Security, which sells body cameras, said, “[Officers] have this fear that if they’ve been mandated to wear a camera and then for some reason they’re unable to push the button or forget to push the button, the absence of video evidence will be used as evidence against them that they did something wrong.”
There’s also a potential issue with too much being filmed. Russell Brandom of The Verge pointed out that “The new funding push is substantial, but 50,000 cameras will cover only a fraction of the more than 750,000 police officers currently employed in America. Camera proposals have also run into trouble with public records laws in states like Washington, which require the release of all police records not actively tied up in an investigation. With hundreds of hours of video generated by police cameras every day, that would present serious problems for both privacy and simple logistics.”
lssie Lapowsky of Wired emphasized the importance of the program, however small. “This funding, of course, will only be enough to outfit a small fraction of police officers with cameras, and yet, it’s a major vote of confidence from the federal government in a new method of police surveillance that is already proving to be incredibly effective,” she wrote. She also noted that body cameras have been effective in places such as in Rialto, California, where, after police started wearing them in 2012, “citizen complaints against officers fell 88 percent in the first year, and use of force by officers declined 60 percent. That’s an indication that cameras don’t only document the events as they unfold, they actually change the way everyone involved behaves.”
But Congress would have to approve the funding Obama requested. “Will the Congress play ball, and agree to the plan?” asked Chris Tognotti of Bustle. “It’s a complicated question, since conservative orthodoxies about support for police forces can sometimes cut against the traditional skepticism of state power. And after the 2014 midterm elections, with the Republicans storming into control of the Senate In historic fashion, it’s sure to be an even heavier lift than it would’ve been this time last year.”
U.S. News & World Report.
