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Police complaints drop over 90% after deploying body cameras

597 points by riqbal 10y ago

ctack 10y ago
I want to see these on politicians.
- ctack 10y ago
  It's been on my mind for awhile. It's a similar situation: people in positions of power and responsibility which can be and are abused. The political situation is even more important. The billions that go missing in economies due to corruption likely have a greater affect on poverty and crime than police brutality.
paublyrne 10y ago
I welcome anything which reduces the sense of police citizens and non-police citizens being on different sides, or in some sort of opposition. A similar trial in the UK had similar results recently https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/sep/29/police-with-body-cameras-receive-93-fewer-complaints-study https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/sep/29/police-with-...
- andyjohnson0 10y ago
  That appears to be the same study referenced in the TechCrunch article.
  - rikkus 10y ago
    The TechCrunch article reference a study made in the UK but 'global' (it references several sites), though shows a photograph of a police officer wearing a US flag.
- inopinatus 10y ago
  I think that's actually a report of the same trial.
AstralStorm 10y ago
It is trite, but oversight certainly curbs abuse of power.
- Kiro 10y ago
  And false complaints.
  - flamedoge 10y ago
    all in all less bull
  - willvarfar 10y ago
    A drop in false complaints could be a factor, but the study tentatively weighs the officer behavior the bigger change: > Specifics on how exactly this is happening are unclear. Is the officer less confrontational to begin with, avoiding escalation? Or are suspects and complainants more wary of their conduct? Is it some combination of the two, or are even more factors involved? To determine these things would be a far more complex and subtle piece of research, but the study does suggest that officer behavior is probably the most affected, and that other effects flow from that. It would be interesting if they could capture how many complaints there are generally, and how many complaints in areas deploying body cameras are dis/proved due to video evidence.
  - curiousgal 10y ago
    Though that might be true, the study didn't look into the falsehood of the complaints. >In the year before the study, 1,539 complaints in total were filed against officers; at the end of the body camera experiment, the year had only yielded 113 complaints. Search for "false" in the published study [0] yields 0 results. 0.http://cjb.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/09/21/0093854816668218.full.pdf http://cjb.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/09/21/009385481666...
    - sosuke 10y ago
      Then the study didn't even consider the possibility of false complaints? From the frequency it is mentioned here it seems like a possible hypothesis that should have been mentioned as not a factor if it was proved out to not be.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
icantdrive55 10y ago
Police unions will fight cameras. They will do cute, pilot programs in certain neighborhoods to fool us. I would like to see all police officers be required to have a cam on(at all times)while on shift. It would just be like carrying a gun. "If you don't want to carry a gun---you just can't be a police officer. No Andy Griffith's on this force. Times have just changed. We carry guns-- we carry cams! If you do well on the test, and pass the psychological; you're hired. Good Luck. We hope to have the best, brightest, and most ethical on board." It will never happen because police departments are so scattered across the US, and know one is ultimately in charge. (On at all times. No covers for cams. One the whole time while on shift. Maybe a bathroom break exclusion, but I feel that would abused.)
- jomamaxx 10y ago
  Many cops welcome the cameras because it's their vindication and get-out-of-jail ticket for people making false claims. If I were a cop, I'd want one for sure.
  - JshWright 10y ago
    I know a lot of cops, including many that wear body cameras. They are universally in favor of them, for the very reason you mentioned (they all have stories of times they were accused of misconduct, but had video evidence on their side).
    - mrgoldenbrown 10y ago
      Please have them come to Boston and convince their fellow officers. The union here is fighting them tooth and nail, even after being given financial incentives to pilot them.
  - ccvannorman 10y ago
    "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" applies here. I would definitely want a camera if I was an officer, and I definitely don't want a (gov't always-on) camera if I'm a civilian.
bboreham 10y ago
This bit is as interesting as the headline: > there was no significant difference in complaints between officers wearing cameras that week and those going without.
- pyre 10y ago
  IIRC, they rotated the cameras between officers, and postulated that wearing the cameras had some sort of lasting affect on the attitude of the officers (even when there were no cameras). That said, all officers knew that they were part of this study and could have just been on their best behaviour.
  - peteretep 10y ago
    > all officers knew that they were part of this study > and could have just been on their best behaviour. I feel like any explanation that isn't this one has the burden of proof
- plopilop 10y ago
  I'm shooting in the dark, but can this be explained by the fact that people don't know whether the officer has a body camera or not, but won't take the risk? tbh I don't know how big/noticeable they are,.
  - Chris2048 10y ago
    Panopticon. All Police should be fitted with a "camera", some can be dummies for budgeting reasons. Maybe public should do the same?
  - 7Z7 10y ago
    Don't you think it's more likely that the police involved - who all knew about and experienced wearing the body cams for a portion of their shifts - modified their overall behaviour, than assume that the unrelated public - who very likely don't know that police are trialling the cameras, were told when they were being recorded, and who probably haven't individually had multiple interactions with police before/during the trial (ie. to learn and modify their behaviour, even when they knew they were not being filmed by body cameras) - all managed to modify their behaviour, without conferring or conspiring, in line with the trial time?
perlgeek 10y ago
I wonder how much of the effect comes from the cameras and their perception, and how much comes from the oversight that the study itself provides. And how long it's going to last. We are all on our best behavior when somebody's, but it typically doesn't last forever. Eventually the effect wears out. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for it, I'm just skeptical of long term numbers outside of studies. Still, if it reduces complaints and incidents, it'll well be worth it.
- fsloth 10y ago
  It's a well known effect that just being aware of being in a study modifies peoples behavior.
  - reitoei 10y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect
    - fsloth 10y ago
      Thanks. I knew I wanted to quote that study but had forgotten the name :)
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- Steeeve 10y ago
  I've seen similar statistics on several occasions over the last decade or so. I was never given the impression that it was a study, moreso that it was a very basic analysis based on the number of complaints filed for a period after body cameras were implemented. This is the first time I've read something that actually has an aura of being a study. I'm a little leery of only seven departments being looked at, but that's just a pointer that further study needs to be done. The numbers are promising.
- frankosaurus 10y ago
  Good question. From TFA: there was no significant difference in complaints between officers wearing cameras that week and those going without This suggested to me that it was the study, not the cameras, that caused the reduction in complaints.
cm2187 10y ago
The thing is when the novelty aspects wears off, people (policemen and citizen) will tend to forget that they are being recorded. A bit like people are outraged that the NSA is recording them naked on skype. But a year later they would be back at it again and wouldn't even think about it. That's how many documentaries are made. You follow a guy with a small camcorder, the guy knows he is recorded, behaves, but it is impossible to curb his attitude for too long and after a few weeks you start capturing natural reactions, he sort of forgot the camera. Smart people will do a better job at keeping in mind that they are watched, but the sort of people involved in confrontations with the police, whichever side is at fault, is more often than not not smart. So would be curious to see the real long term effect.
- alemhnan 10y ago
  The difference with NSA recording naked people is that we are recording also the police behaviour, so it's a two way factor. Most likely the police is behaving 'better' and without stirring up the need to complain that much. As often happens on internet, when anonymous you are a kind of different human being then when you have an identity attach to you.
- mikeash 10y ago
  The NSA recording your Skype calls has no tangible consequences. An official police camera recording an officer's misconduct can cause that officer to lose their job or freedom. I don't think they'll forget, and even if they do, the bad ones will get ejected from the force.
  - heroprotagonist 10y ago
    I agree, with the caveat that this will only be effective as long as there's some kind of penalty for the camera getting turned off or 'breaking'. This seems to be a recurring theme, wherever they get deployed. One example is the police killing of O’Neal in Chicago in July. The officer involved there had his camera turned off. This might have been an issue with training the officer with the equipment, but it's hard to truly know. A separate issue is that these body cameras need to be deployed universally or they lose credibility and effectiveness. One example of this is Korryn Gaines' death in Baltimore in August, where there is some question of whether the police were wearing bodycams during a raid after a 7 hour standoff at the woman's home (she was armed). The police wouldn't confirm there were any bodycams present until a photograph was found which showed a bodycam on one of the officers at the door to the woman's apartment at some point during the standoff. The police claimed then that none were present for the raid, and only a few support officers outside were wearing them. The problem here isn't whether they were or weren't wearing the cameras in that particular incident, or whether there was anything suspect about the police' performance there. The problem is that it is completely _possible_ for the police to cover up events that the bodycams are supposed to provide accountability for by simply refusing to admit that there was a camera in use until someone shows up with a photograph. I don't believe that's what happened in that case, but I do think it's plausible that some police department will eventually do this to avoid public scrutiny during some embarrassing or controversial event. I'm not really certain how we could make police accountable, in a fair fashion, for instances where the equipment legitimately fails. I think some penalty here should be on the department instead of individual officers, but I'm not sure what that punishment should be. Equipment failure in the field isn't unheard of, but if checks are performed before going on duty and there is regular maintenance, then it should hopefully become a rare occurrence, and even more rare for it to occur during an event where such a record could provide substantial testimony to the police's behavior during some situation. I'm sure the tech isn't completely stable, yet, but solid reliability needs to be one of the highest priorities for any such program.
jcrei 10y ago
In many cases, the police doesn't care that they are being filmed. There's this new documentary coming out called Do Not Resist, and there was an article on the WSJ about it with the following quote "The most disturbing thing is that it simply doesn’t occur to the sheriff that the footage might be disturbing. He has no problem letting a film crew show this massive contraption built to withstand roadside bombs in a military convoy lumbering through his small town, because the notion that military vehicles aren’t appropriate for domestic policing is foreign to him." https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/09/30/do-not-resist-a-chilling-look-at-the-normalization-of-warrior-cops/?utm_term=.5364143bb8d8 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/09/30/...
- hvidgaard 10y ago
  That is absolutely terrifying to read! The striking thing about the footage is, again, the utter mundanity of the raid. A family was just violently raided over an unmeasurable amount of pot. A man was arrested over that pot. The money he needed for his business was taken from him. Yet there’s no shame or embarrassment from the officers. There’s no panic that the whole thing was captured on video. That’s when it hits you. They don’t think they’ve made a mistake. This is what they do. The lead officers later tells the camera, matter-of-factly, that the raid turned up “a personal use amount of marijuana.” Perhaps realizing that he was also on camera back at the police station promising a much larger stash of drugs, he adds, “It happens. Drug warrants are, you know, 50-50.” If they raid a home on the pretense that he has a large stash and is selling, fine. But when it turns out to not be true, they better pay for damage - no matter what else they find.
  - pjc50 10y ago
    I wondered what the ethnicity of the person raided was, and of course he's black. That's why there's no shame or embarrassment from the officers. That's why the Black Lives Matter campaign exists: the police have, in this case, done a substantial amount of damage to someone's life but not killed them. And there's not even an acknowledgement of that.
    - 10y ago
kriro 10y ago
Since this study is from the UK where (at least in London) it feels like there are cameras pretty much everywhere...I wonder if a citizen concerned with police abuse could get a sort of citizens warrant to tap into these feeds to make their case? Or maybe automatically track police with these cameras with some sort of recognition system and have a review board do sample tests on the material in some way? Are those alternatives that are considered (compared to body cameras)? I like the general psychological notion of "adding extra surveillance of citizens creates extra surveillance of the state forces as well". Might even serve to create some sort of "enough surveillance" balance. How does access to security cameras generally work? You can get access to the material for court cases to defend yourself, right?
- vidarh 10y ago
  In all of the EU, EU data protection law provides for subject access to recordings. Specifically in the UK, the UK Data Protection Act requires that anyone that operates surveillance cameras have procedures in place to process subject access notices. In other words: You already can get access to them. No warrant needed. There are exceptions, e.g. recordings can be withheld if subject to an ongoing criminal investigation (but in that case, if you're involved, it will be evidence that your defence have a right to get access to). This is not limited to government operated cameras, but all operators (and private cameras make up the vast majority of cctv in the UK)
  - DanBC 10y ago
    Yes, you can get access of video of yourself. > > I wonder if a citizen concerned with police abuse could get a sort of citizens warrant to tap into these feeds to make their case? Can a concerned citizen monitor other footage? Under English law probably not.
  - Chris2048 10y ago
    Can you give me details? I live in Ireland, a member of the EU. I once tried to get footage from a privately owned camera overlooking a public ATM. By the time I got a reply, they stated the footage on the HDD had already been wiped and overwritten...
headmelted 10y ago
I'm a little surprised that in the article, and in the comments here, there's such a presumption of guilt on the part of the police. I understand that this is a controversial topic in the US, probably moreso than elsewhere, and for very important reasons, but is it really impartial for the study, the article, or the comments here to draw the conclusion that police were "better behaved" because they were being filmed? Maybe the public were better behaved when they being filmed. Maybe the police were, in some cases, behaving as they normally do but the public were less inclined to raise complaints that may have been spurious as they knew there was evidence of the actual exchange. I don't doubt that behaviour of individual officers is a factor and was likely affected in a positive way here, but I'm deeply skeptical that a 93% drop in complaints is solely down to bad police officers playing nice for the cameras. The presumption of innocence needs to be a two-way street, surely?
- Aaargh20318 10y ago
  > The presumption of innocence needs to be a two-way street, surely? No, the police should be held to a higher standard. They are not citizens when they are out on patrol, they are representatives of the government. IMHO police officers should be presumed guilty until proven innocent.
  - danieltillett 10y ago
    I don't think anyone should be presumed guilty until proven innocent.
    - Aaargh20318 10y ago
      They should be able to justify every single action they perform while on duty anyway, and it should be easy with a bodycam. I see no problem in presumption of guilt for officers on duty. At the very least it'll give them incentive to actually wear the cam.
      - danieltillett 10y ago
angry_octet 10y ago
If only all that footage was available... Then we could use opencv to count the number of donuts consumed in real time!
neximo64 10y ago
So people try to get back at cops to deal with their anger of being caught for their menial offences..
ComodoHacker 10y ago
I wonder whether body cameras on people would have the same effect?
anovikov 10y ago
Maybe another explanation is that many complaints are false and people stop complaining when they know they can be proven lying? Just like proliferation of smartphone cameras virtually eradicated any UFO sightings.
- Retric 10y ago
  I think it's cultural, UFO sightings may be just if not more common with people regularly flying drones. People just care less. I have seen plenty of flying things I can't identify, I just never assumed Aliens.
WalterBright 10y ago
I'd wear a body camera simply to protect myself against false accusations.
Overtonwindow 10y ago
It is very sad that we've (had to?) militarize our police force in America to such a degree that there's really no going back. I don't fear the police, only an interaction with them. Despite the cameras it seems no one is safe from escalation and death. Even with cameras we will only see the aftermath. Someone will still be dead.
Chris2048 10y ago
I'd like to see this for security in general e.g doormen/security/bouncers
- Chris2048 10y ago
  Downvote? wtf..
  - sctb 10y ago
    > Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
ccvannorman 10y ago
Whether or not you agree with police violence, oversight, or power, body cameras are the best way we have right now to document exactly what is going on. If the courts decide to change how the police interact with the public, it will probably be on the data of thousands or millions of minutes of body camera footage. At that point the court can make a very clear decision: Do we want this to continue? Because with the footage it will be (more) clear exactly what is going on.
jbmorgado 10y ago
It's quite strange that the article immediately jumps to the conclusion that is (only) the police that is behaving better. Why don't they even pose the possibility that the people being policed, knowing there is a camera, either behave better or at least, knowing there is a camera, don't make false claims about police mistreatment, knowing that the police now has proof about what really happened?
- dbwdyhtbaby 10y ago
  The article explicitly states that the drastic decline report rates were the same in weeks where they weren't wearing the cameras.
  - nrclark 10y ago
    Could the decline be explained by the Hawthorne effect? It's been pretty well proven people behave differently when they know they're being studied. Being subjects in the study could have affected their behavior far more than the presence/lack of cameras.
  - jbmorgado 10y ago
    Exactly and that only reinforces my point. The policemen would know when they where using the cameras or not and could react accordingly, the people being arrested or having any interaction with the police wouldn't, so they behaved properly in both occasions and/or didn't make false claims about mistreatment by the police.
asciihacker 10y ago
It seems that the body cam often "falls off" just before the cops tase, beat the shit out of, or kill someone.
- JshWright 10y ago
  Do you have any evidence to support the claim that this happens "often". Your use of scare quotes seems to indicate that this is intentional behavior. Can you back up such an accusation?
javiramos 10y ago
There has been extensive research on recording physicians during patient care. The results almost unanimously conclude that recording physicians improves performance, quality, and compliance [1]. [1] http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1673991 http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1673991
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  Kind of like traffic cameras? If you know you're being watched, you'll conform to the letter of the law, most of the time. That link is just about hand washing. I'd hoped 'performance, quality and compliance' meant something more, maybe related to patient outcomes. Got anything else?
  - javiramos 10y ago
    Joe, I recommend Unaccountable by Martin Makary. Martin also has extensive list of academic publications relating to the monitoring of physicians as a way to improve patient outcomes. https://www.amazon.com/Unaccountable-Hospitals-Transparency-Revolutionize-Health/dp/1608198383 https://www.amazon.com/Unaccountable-Hospitals-Transparency-...
nyolfen 10y ago
A related headline from this morning: Not One New York Police Officer Has a Body Camera http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/04/nyregion/despite-national-trend-new-york-police-are-slow-to-adopt-body-cameras.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/04/nyregion/despite-national-...
SCAQTony 10y ago
Along with body cameras better training and specialized units to deal with those suspects who are ostensibly mentally ill would save a lot of time, money and lives. 30 UK police subduing a mentally ill man carrying a big knife: https://youtu.be/cX5CPx4RKWw https://youtu.be/cX5CPx4RKWw
njharman 10y ago
I wonder how many of those "stopped" complaints would have been frivolous or made in hopes of cash settlement. Even if only a few percent, body cameras seem like a no brainer, good for everyone. Except to corrupt people (on both side of badge).
losteverything 10y ago
My inner statistics alarm goes off when I read such a high percent ( 90+ ) change. If this were my study I'd really need more data? Etc
austincheney 10y ago
Specifics on how exactly this is happening are unclear. Is the officer less confrontational to begin with, avoiding escalation? Or are suspects and complainants more wary of their conduct? Is it some combination of the two, or are even more factors involved? To determine these things would be a far more complex and subtle piece of research, but the study does suggest that officer behavior is probably the most affected, and that other effects flow from that. Clearly the brilliant researchers of Cambridge don't have teenage children. The answer is simple. People in emotional need of attention will act out (and escalate) as necessary so long as there remains feedback (whether positive or negative, healthy or harmful). I suspect this sort of irrational behavior is most frequently displayed against the police officer, but in some cases can be caused by officers (they are people too). The only distinction between officers and non-officers being frequency of experience dealing with confrontation. Despite the behavior being completely irrational (often out of control) there remains a fear of accountability. Will video evidence go out to your parents, spouse, coworkers? How embarrassing, right? The magic is that this fear of accountability is immediately present. The irrational behavior has to ramp up, similar to rage, and so is not spontaneous. This indicates the accountability fear is a constant reminder to not embarrass yourself, particularly when there is evidence that will appear on YouTube.
losvedir 10y ago
> Against all expectations, there was no significant difference in complaints between officers wearing cameras that week and those going without. Is no one else alarmed by this? Maybe I'm jaded by A/B testing, but if the A doesn't win or lose to the B, then I generally chalk up the effect as exogenous. Could it not be something else - anything else - that changed the number of police complaints from one year to the next?
- devindotcom 10y ago
  They mention this in the paper. The chance of all 7 depts changing their reporting simultaneously is pretty vanishing. Much of the paper is dedicated to understanding the cause of the lack of difference between experimental groups, check it out.
foolinaround 10y ago
We really should have body cameras on our politicians.
turc1656 10y ago
Oh gee, you mean to tell me the criminals in uniform out there to "serve and protect" us suddenly stop violating our rights when they MIGHT be held accountable? I say "might" because there is still no guarantee since the blue wall of bullshit is quite dense. 93% is an absolutely staggering statistic. No other change to police policy even comes close. And the beauty of it is that in addition to hopefully clamping down on bad cops, it also has the delightful use of protecting and exonerating the good ones who receive knowingly false complaints from people who are just being spiteful against cops that arrested them. 93% is a number that cannot be ignored. This, alone, is reason enough to justify the cost to get every single cop in this country suited up with a camera. It keeps everyone in check and acts as expert testimony that produces (in most cases) crystal clear memory of events for everyone to examine. As a white male growing up in a very diverse area with a fairly high percentage of minorities, I never really believed those who claimed seemingly unbelievable stories of police mistreatment and excessive force. I had never personally experienced it, nor even bore witness to it at any time. I thought they were all lying through their teeth to stick to a claim of innocence and how the police steamrolled them. Now, looking back, I am left wondering how many of those stories were true. And I grew up in the 90's! I can't even imagine what really went on in the 60's and 70's. Far too often we see videos detailing out horrible acts by law enforcement. Acts that if anyone without a badge were commit, EVEN IN SELF-DEFENSE, would in many cases land us in jail for a very, very long time. I wonder how many people I grew up with have criminal records today simply because they weren't the correct skin color.

597 points by riqbal 10y ago

ctack 10y ago

I want to see these on politicians.

ctack 10y ago
It's been on my mind for awhile. It's a similar situation: people in positions of power and responsibility which can be and are abused. The political situation is even more important. The billions that go missing in economies due to corruption likely have a greater affect on poverty and crime than police brutality.

paublyrne 10y ago

I welcome anything which reduces the sense of police citizens and non-police citizens being on different sides, or in some sort of opposition. A similar trial in the UK had similar results recently https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/sep/29/police-with-body-cameras-receive-93-fewer-complaints-study https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/sep/29/police-with-...

andyjohnson0 10y ago
That appears to be the same study referenced in the TechCrunch article.
- rikkus 10y ago
  The TechCrunch article reference a study made in the UK but 'global' (it references several sites), though shows a photograph of a police officer wearing a US flag.
inopinatus 10y ago
I think that's actually a report of the same trial.

AstralStorm 10y ago

It is trite, but oversight certainly curbs abuse of power.

Kiro 10y ago
And false complaints.
- flamedoge 10y ago
  all in all less bull
- willvarfar 10y ago
  A drop in false complaints could be a factor, but the study tentatively weighs the officer behavior the bigger change: > Specifics on how exactly this is happening are unclear. Is the officer less confrontational to begin with, avoiding escalation? Or are suspects and complainants more wary of their conduct? Is it some combination of the two, or are even more factors involved? To determine these things would be a far more complex and subtle piece of research, but the study does suggest that officer behavior is probably the most affected, and that other effects flow from that. It would be interesting if they could capture how many complaints there are generally, and how many complaints in areas deploying body cameras are dis/proved due to video evidence.
- curiousgal 10y ago
  Though that might be true, the study didn't look into the falsehood of the complaints. >In the year before the study, 1,539 complaints in total were filed against officers; at the end of the body camera experiment, the year had only yielded 113 complaints. Search for "false" in the published study [0] yields 0 results. 0.http://cjb.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/09/21/0093854816668218.full.pdf http://cjb.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/09/21/009385481666...
  - sosuke 10y ago
    Then the study didn't even consider the possibility of false complaints? From the frequency it is mentioned here it seems like a possible hypothesis that should have been mentioned as not a factor if it was proved out to not be.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

icantdrive55 10y ago

Police unions will fight cameras. They will do cute, pilot programs in certain neighborhoods to fool us. I would like to see all police officers be required to have a cam on(at all times)while on shift. It would just be like carrying a gun. "If you don't want to carry a gun---you just can't be a police officer. No Andy Griffith's on this force. Times have just changed. We carry guns-- we carry cams! If you do well on the test, and pass the psychological; you're hired. Good Luck. We hope to have the best, brightest, and most ethical on board." It will never happen because police departments are so scattered across the US, and know one is ultimately in charge. (On at all times. No covers for cams. One the whole time while on shift. Maybe a bathroom break exclusion, but I feel that would abused.)

jomamaxx 10y ago
Many cops welcome the cameras because it's their vindication and get-out-of-jail ticket for people making false claims. If I were a cop, I'd want one for sure.
- JshWright 10y ago
  I know a lot of cops, including many that wear body cameras. They are universally in favor of them, for the very reason you mentioned (they all have stories of times they were accused of misconduct, but had video evidence on their side).
  - mrgoldenbrown 10y ago
    Please have them come to Boston and convince their fellow officers. The union here is fighting them tooth and nail, even after being given financial incentives to pilot them.
- ccvannorman 10y ago
  "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" applies here. I would definitely want a camera if I was an officer, and I definitely don't want a (gov't always-on) camera if I'm a civilian.

bboreham 10y ago

This bit is as interesting as the headline: > there was no significant difference in complaints between officers wearing cameras that week and those going without.

pyre 10y ago
IIRC, they rotated the cameras between officers, and postulated that wearing the cameras had some sort of lasting affect on the attitude of the officers (even when there were no cameras). That said, all officers knew that they were part of this study and could have just been on their best behaviour.
- peteretep 10y ago
  > all officers knew that they were part of this study > and could have just been on their best behaviour. I feel like any explanation that isn't this one has the burden of proof
plopilop 10y ago
I'm shooting in the dark, but can this be explained by the fact that people don't know whether the officer has a body camera or not, but won't take the risk? tbh I don't know how big/noticeable they are,.
- Chris2048 10y ago
  Panopticon. All Police should be fitted with a "camera", some can be dummies for budgeting reasons. Maybe public should do the same?
- 7Z7 10y ago
  Don't you think it's more likely that the police involved - who all knew about and experienced wearing the body cams for a portion of their shifts - modified their overall behaviour, than assume that the unrelated public - who very likely don't know that police are trialling the cameras, were told when they were being recorded, and who probably haven't individually had multiple interactions with police before/during the trial (ie. to learn and modify their behaviour, even when they knew they were not being filmed by body cameras) - all managed to modify their behaviour, without conferring or conspiring, in line with the trial time?

perlgeek 10y ago

I wonder how much of the effect comes from the cameras and their perception, and how much comes from the oversight that the study itself provides. And how long it's going to last. We are all on our best behavior when somebody's, but it typically doesn't last forever. Eventually the effect wears out. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for it, I'm just skeptical of long term numbers outside of studies. Still, if it reduces complaints and incidents, it'll well be worth it.

fsloth 10y ago
It's a well known effect that just being aware of being in a study modifies peoples behavior.
- reitoei 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect
  - fsloth 10y ago
    Thanks. I knew I wanted to quote that study but had forgotten the name :)
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Steeeve 10y ago
I've seen similar statistics on several occasions over the last decade or so. I was never given the impression that it was a study, moreso that it was a very basic analysis based on the number of complaints filed for a period after body cameras were implemented. This is the first time I've read something that actually has an aura of being a study. I'm a little leery of only seven departments being looked at, but that's just a pointer that further study needs to be done. The numbers are promising.
frankosaurus 10y ago
Good question. From TFA: there was no significant difference in complaints between officers wearing cameras that week and those going without This suggested to me that it was the study, not the cameras, that caused the reduction in complaints.

cm2187 10y ago

The thing is when the novelty aspects wears off, people (policemen and citizen) will tend to forget that they are being recorded. A bit like people are outraged that the NSA is recording them naked on skype. But a year later they would be back at it again and wouldn't even think about it. That's how many documentaries are made. You follow a guy with a small camcorder, the guy knows he is recorded, behaves, but it is impossible to curb his attitude for too long and after a few weeks you start capturing natural reactions, he sort of forgot the camera. Smart people will do a better job at keeping in mind that they are watched, but the sort of people involved in confrontations with the police, whichever side is at fault, is more often than not not smart. So would be curious to see the real long term effect.

alemhnan 10y ago
The difference with NSA recording naked people is that we are recording also the police behaviour, so it's a two way factor. Most likely the police is behaving 'better' and without stirring up the need to complain that much. As often happens on internet, when anonymous you are a kind of different human being then when you have an identity attach to you.
mikeash 10y ago
The NSA recording your Skype calls has no tangible consequences. An official police camera recording an officer's misconduct can cause that officer to lose their job or freedom. I don't think they'll forget, and even if they do, the bad ones will get ejected from the force.
- heroprotagonist 10y ago
  I agree, with the caveat that this will only be effective as long as there's some kind of penalty for the camera getting turned off or 'breaking'. This seems to be a recurring theme, wherever they get deployed. One example is the police killing of O’Neal in Chicago in July. The officer involved there had his camera turned off. This might have been an issue with training the officer with the equipment, but it's hard to truly know. A separate issue is that these body cameras need to be deployed universally or they lose credibility and effectiveness. One example of this is Korryn Gaines' death in Baltimore in August, where there is some question of whether the police were wearing bodycams during a raid after a 7 hour standoff at the woman's home (she was armed). The police wouldn't confirm there were any bodycams present until a photograph was found which showed a bodycam on one of the officers at the door to the woman's apartment at some point during the standoff. The police claimed then that none were present for the raid, and only a few support officers outside were wearing them. The problem here isn't whether they were or weren't wearing the cameras in that particular incident, or whether there was anything suspect about the police' performance there. The problem is that it is completely _possible_ for the police to cover up events that the bodycams are supposed to provide accountability for by simply refusing to admit that there was a camera in use until someone shows up with a photograph. I don't believe that's what happened in that case, but I do think it's plausible that some police department will eventually do this to avoid public scrutiny during some embarrassing or controversial event. I'm not really certain how we could make police accountable, in a fair fashion, for instances where the equipment legitimately fails. I think some penalty here should be on the department instead of individual officers, but I'm not sure what that punishment should be. Equipment failure in the field isn't unheard of, but if checks are performed before going on duty and there is regular maintenance, then it should hopefully become a rare occurrence, and even more rare for it to occur during an event where such a record could provide substantial testimony to the police's behavior during some situation. I'm sure the tech isn't completely stable, yet, but solid reliability needs to be one of the highest priorities for any such program.

jcrei 10y ago

In many cases, the police doesn't care that they are being filmed. There's this new documentary coming out called Do Not Resist, and there was an article on the WSJ about it with the following quote "The most disturbing thing is that it simply doesn’t occur to the sheriff that the footage might be disturbing. He has no problem letting a film crew show this massive contraption built to withstand roadside bombs in a military convoy lumbering through his small town, because the notion that military vehicles aren’t appropriate for domestic policing is foreign to him." https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/09/30/do-not-resist-a-chilling-look-at-the-normalization-of-warrior-cops/?utm_term=.5364143bb8d8 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/09/30/...

hvidgaard 10y ago
That is absolutely terrifying to read! The striking thing about the footage is, again, the utter mundanity of the raid. A family was just violently raided over an unmeasurable amount of pot. A man was arrested over that pot. The money he needed for his business was taken from him. Yet there’s no shame or embarrassment from the officers. There’s no panic that the whole thing was captured on video. That’s when it hits you. They don’t think they’ve made a mistake. This is what they do. The lead officers later tells the camera, matter-of-factly, that the raid turned up “a personal use amount of marijuana.” Perhaps realizing that he was also on camera back at the police station promising a much larger stash of drugs, he adds, “It happens. Drug warrants are, you know, 50-50.” If they raid a home on the pretense that he has a large stash and is selling, fine. But when it turns out to not be true, they better pay for damage - no matter what else they find.
- pjc50 10y ago
  I wondered what the ethnicity of the person raided was, and of course he's black. That's why there's no shame or embarrassment from the officers. That's why the Black Lives Matter campaign exists: the police have, in this case, done a substantial amount of damage to someone's life but not killed them. And there's not even an acknowledgement of that.
  - 10y ago

kriro 10y ago

Since this study is from the UK where (at least in London) it feels like there are cameras pretty much everywhere...I wonder if a citizen concerned with police abuse could get a sort of citizens warrant to tap into these feeds to make their case? Or maybe automatically track police with these cameras with some sort of recognition system and have a review board do sample tests on the material in some way? Are those alternatives that are considered (compared to body cameras)? I like the general psychological notion of "adding extra surveillance of citizens creates extra surveillance of the state forces as well". Might even serve to create some sort of "enough surveillance" balance. How does access to security cameras generally work? You can get access to the material for court cases to defend yourself, right?

vidarh 10y ago
In all of the EU, EU data protection law provides for subject access to recordings. Specifically in the UK, the UK Data Protection Act requires that anyone that operates surveillance cameras have procedures in place to process subject access notices. In other words: You already can get access to them. No warrant needed. There are exceptions, e.g. recordings can be withheld if subject to an ongoing criminal investigation (but in that case, if you're involved, it will be evidence that your defence have a right to get access to). This is not limited to government operated cameras, but all operators (and private cameras make up the vast majority of cctv in the UK)
- DanBC 10y ago
  Yes, you can get access of video of yourself. > > I wonder if a citizen concerned with police abuse could get a sort of citizens warrant to tap into these feeds to make their case? Can a concerned citizen monitor other footage? Under English law probably not.
- Chris2048 10y ago
  Can you give me details? I live in Ireland, a member of the EU. I once tried to get footage from a privately owned camera overlooking a public ATM. By the time I got a reply, they stated the footage on the HDD had already been wiped and overwritten...

headmelted 10y ago

I'm a little surprised that in the article, and in the comments here, there's such a presumption of guilt on the part of the police. I understand that this is a controversial topic in the US, probably moreso than elsewhere, and for very important reasons, but is it really impartial for the study, the article, or the comments here to draw the conclusion that police were "better behaved" because they were being filmed? Maybe the public were better behaved when they being filmed. Maybe the police were, in some cases, behaving as they normally do but the public were less inclined to raise complaints that may have been spurious as they knew there was evidence of the actual exchange. I don't doubt that behaviour of individual officers is a factor and was likely affected in a positive way here, but I'm deeply skeptical that a 93% drop in complaints is solely down to bad police officers playing nice for the cameras. The presumption of innocence needs to be a two-way street, surely?

Aaargh20318 10y ago
> The presumption of innocence needs to be a two-way street, surely? No, the police should be held to a higher standard. They are not citizens when they are out on patrol, they are representatives of the government. IMHO police officers should be presumed guilty until proven innocent.
- danieltillett 10y ago
  I don't think anyone should be presumed guilty until proven innocent.
  - Aaargh20318 10y ago
    They should be able to justify every single action they perform while on duty anyway, and it should be easy with a bodycam. I see no problem in presumption of guilt for officers on duty. At the very least it'll give them incentive to actually wear the cam.
    - danieltillett 10y ago

angry_octet 10y ago

If only all that footage was available... Then we could use opencv to count the number of donuts consumed in real time!

neximo64 10y ago

So people try to get back at cops to deal with their anger of being caught for their menial offences..

ComodoHacker 10y ago

I wonder whether body cameras on people would have the same effect?

anovikov 10y ago

Maybe another explanation is that many complaints are false and people stop complaining when they know they can be proven lying? Just like proliferation of smartphone cameras virtually eradicated any UFO sightings.

Retric 10y ago
I think it's cultural, UFO sightings may be just if not more common with people regularly flying drones. People just care less. I have seen plenty of flying things I can't identify, I just never assumed Aliens.

WalterBright 10y ago

I'd wear a body camera simply to protect myself against false accusations.

Overtonwindow 10y ago

It is very sad that we've (had to?) militarize our police force in America to such a degree that there's really no going back. I don't fear the police, only an interaction with them. Despite the cameras it seems no one is safe from escalation and death. Even with cameras we will only see the aftermath. Someone will still be dead.

Chris2048 10y ago

I'd like to see this for security in general e.g doormen/security/bouncers

Chris2048 10y ago
Downvote? wtf..
- sctb 10y ago
  > Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]

ccvannorman 10y ago

Whether or not you agree with police violence, oversight, or power, body cameras are the best way we have right now to document exactly what is going on. If the courts decide to change how the police interact with the public, it will probably be on the data of thousands or millions of minutes of body camera footage. At that point the court can make a very clear decision: Do we want this to continue? Because with the footage it will be (more) clear exactly what is going on.

jbmorgado 10y ago

It's quite strange that the article immediately jumps to the conclusion that is (only) the police that is behaving better. Why don't they even pose the possibility that the people being policed, knowing there is a camera, either behave better or at least, knowing there is a camera, don't make false claims about police mistreatment, knowing that the police now has proof about what really happened?

dbwdyhtbaby 10y ago
The article explicitly states that the drastic decline report rates were the same in weeks where they weren't wearing the cameras.
- nrclark 10y ago
  Could the decline be explained by the Hawthorne effect? It's been pretty well proven people behave differently when they know they're being studied. Being subjects in the study could have affected their behavior far more than the presence/lack of cameras.
- jbmorgado 10y ago
  Exactly and that only reinforces my point. The policemen would know when they where using the cameras or not and could react accordingly, the people being arrested or having any interaction with the police wouldn't, so they behaved properly in both occasions and/or didn't make false claims about mistreatment by the police.

asciihacker 10y ago

It seems that the body cam often "falls off" just before the cops tase, beat the shit out of, or kill someone.

JshWright 10y ago
Do you have any evidence to support the claim that this happens "often". Your use of scare quotes seems to indicate that this is intentional behavior. Can you back up such an accusation?

javiramos 10y ago

There has been extensive research on recording physicians during patient care. The results almost unanimously conclude that recording physicians improves performance, quality, and compliance [1]. [1] http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1673991 http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1673991

JoeAltmaier 10y ago
Kind of like traffic cameras? If you know you're being watched, you'll conform to the letter of the law, most of the time. That link is just about hand washing. I'd hoped 'performance, quality and compliance' meant something more, maybe related to patient outcomes. Got anything else?
- javiramos 10y ago
  Joe, I recommend Unaccountable by Martin Makary. Martin also has extensive list of academic publications relating to the monitoring of physicians as a way to improve patient outcomes. https://www.amazon.com/Unaccountable-Hospitals-Transparency-Revolutionize-Health/dp/1608198383 https://www.amazon.com/Unaccountable-Hospitals-Transparency-...

nyolfen 10y ago

A related headline from this morning: Not One New York Police Officer Has a Body Camera http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/04/nyregion/despite-national-trend-new-york-police-are-slow-to-adopt-body-cameras.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/04/nyregion/despite-national-...

SCAQTony 10y ago

Along with body cameras better training and specialized units to deal with those suspects who are ostensibly mentally ill would save a lot of time, money and lives. 30 UK police subduing a mentally ill man carrying a big knife: https://youtu.be/cX5CPx4RKWw https://youtu.be/cX5CPx4RKWw

njharman 10y ago

I wonder how many of those "stopped" complaints would have been frivolous or made in hopes of cash settlement. Even if only a few percent, body cameras seem like a no brainer, good for everyone. Except to corrupt people (on both side of badge).

losteverything 10y ago

My inner statistics alarm goes off when I read such a high percent ( 90+ ) change. If this were my study I'd really need more data? Etc

austincheney 10y ago

Specifics on how exactly this is happening are unclear. Is the officer less confrontational to begin with, avoiding escalation? Or are suspects and complainants more wary of their conduct? Is it some combination of the two, or are even more factors involved? To determine these things would be a far more complex and subtle piece of research, but the study does suggest that officer behavior is probably the most affected, and that other effects flow from that. Clearly the brilliant researchers of Cambridge don't have teenage children. The answer is simple. People in emotional need of attention will act out (and escalate) as necessary so long as there remains feedback (whether positive or negative, healthy or harmful). I suspect this sort of irrational behavior is most frequently displayed against the police officer, but in some cases can be caused by officers (they are people too). The only distinction between officers and non-officers being frequency of experience dealing with confrontation. Despite the behavior being completely irrational (often out of control) there remains a fear of accountability. Will video evidence go out to your parents, spouse, coworkers? How embarrassing, right? The magic is that this fear of accountability is immediately present. The irrational behavior has to ramp up, similar to rage, and so is not spontaneous. This indicates the accountability fear is a constant reminder to not embarrass yourself, particularly when there is evidence that will appear on YouTube.

losvedir 10y ago

> Against all expectations, there was no significant difference in complaints between officers wearing cameras that week and those going without. Is no one else alarmed by this? Maybe I'm jaded by A/B testing, but if the A doesn't win or lose to the B, then I generally chalk up the effect as exogenous. Could it not be something else - anything else - that changed the number of police complaints from one year to the next?

devindotcom 10y ago
They mention this in the paper. The chance of all 7 depts changing their reporting simultaneously is pretty vanishing. Much of the paper is dedicated to understanding the cause of the lack of difference between experimental groups, check it out.

foolinaround 10y ago

We really should have body cameras on our politicians.

turc1656 10y ago

Oh gee, you mean to tell me the criminals in uniform out there to "serve and protect" us suddenly stop violating our rights when they MIGHT be held accountable? I say "might" because there is still no guarantee since the blue wall of bullshit is quite dense. 93% is an absolutely staggering statistic. No other change to police policy even comes close. And the beauty of it is that in addition to hopefully clamping down on bad cops, it also has the delightful use of protecting and exonerating the good ones who receive knowingly false complaints from people who are just being spiteful against cops that arrested them. 93% is a number that cannot be ignored. This, alone, is reason enough to justify the cost to get every single cop in this country suited up with a camera. It keeps everyone in check and acts as expert testimony that produces (in most cases) crystal clear memory of events for everyone to examine. As a white male growing up in a very diverse area with a fairly high percentage of minorities, I never really believed those who claimed seemingly unbelievable stories of police mistreatment and excessive force. I had never personally experienced it, nor even bore witness to it at any time. I thought they were all lying through their teeth to stick to a claim of innocence and how the police steamrolled them. Now, looking back, I am left wondering how many of those stories were true. And I grew up in the 90's! I can't even imagine what really went on in the 60's and 70's. Far too often we see videos detailing out horrible acts by law enforcement. Acts that if anyone without a badge were commit, EVEN IN SELF-DEFENSE, would in many cases land us in jail for a very, very long time. I wonder how many people I grew up with have criminal records today simply because they weren't the correct skin color.