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The article explicitly addresses this question and presents very compelling evidence that the video cameras affect police behavior more so than civilian behavio
by whack 10y ago
The article explicitly addresses this question and presents very compelling evidence that the video cameras affect police behavior more so than civilian behavior.
Against all expectations, there was no significant difference in complaints between officers wearing cameras that week and those going without.
Strange, right? It seems logical to expect that when the camera was actually present, it would act, as intended, as an impartial witness, cooling heads on both sides of an encounter. But complaints dropped even when officers weren’t using the cameras.
“It may be that, by repeated exposure to the surveillance of the cameras, officers changed their reactive behaviour on the streets — changes that proved more effective and so stuck,” explained the study’s lead author, Barak Ariel, in a Cambridge news release. “With a complaints reduction of nearly 100 percent across the board, we find it difficult to consider alternatives, to be honest.”
The researchers dub this effect “contagious accountability” — learning to do the right thing even when no one is watching.
- microcolonel 10y agoThe problem with this line of reasoning is that it assumes the public even knows how to tell if police officers are wearing body cameras. Even the police themselves don't make the distinction when they are the ones wearing it. Why would the public make a distinction when even the one person who should know, can't?
- whack 10y agoYou're assuming that the civilians are acting under the assumption that the police are wearing body cameras. But why would you assume this? Most police nationwide do not wear body cameras. For most of recent history, the police in those districts did not wear body cameras. When the study was started, obviously the police themselves knew they were wearing cameras, and hence, would have acted differently because they know they were being watched. But the vast majority of civilians do not follow local-police-news closely enough to assume that the police are wearing body cameras.
- mbillie1 10y ago> The problem with this line of reasoning is that it assumes the public even knows how to tell if police officers are wearing body cameras. I don't see how it assumes that at all. I think the gist is that police behave in a way that produces less complaints when they are conscious that their actions are being recorded.