My name is Choha Kim and when our group discussed about police body camera, it became an opportunity for me to consider both sides (arguments) and how much impact police body camera have on people. Every time when events took place because of inevitable things like racism, especially for African American, citizens claimed for “police body camera,” which can contribute to taking care of crimes fairly. As soon as I’ve heard that police body camera enables to protect citizen by monitoring police officers, I was an advocate of police body camera. First, I’ve always thought that direct evidence of how police officers coped with crime. Before police body camera came out, citizens had no accessible evidence or recording. Accessible evidences are strongly needed because police officers’ action on crime can affect citizens enormously that it should be fair. If accessible evidences (recording) are not available, it is obvious that police officers would cope with crimes based on their race preference and personal reasons, which must be prevented. Those numerous examples of unarmed African-American demonstrate how police officers were unfair. According to USA Today, Rialto, Calif., police reported a 60% reduction in use-of-force incidents following a pilot camera deployment program in 2012. There also was an 88% reduction in citizen complaints when compared with the year prior to deployment. Hence, equipment of just one police camera for each hugely helped resolute the complication.
Second, “recording” implies us “immortality.” Recordings permanently exist as long as it doesn’t get damaged. If police officers are equipped with police body camera, they would be able to analyze the aspects, know what changes to make and how to improve. And those recordings will also be helpful in identifying their patterns of coping with crimes. For instance, suppose they have past recordings specifically on unarmed African-American or other minorities. They would know what patterns they have had.
In spite of these advantages, there still exist serious complications occurred by police body camera. The primary purpose of police body camera is to make sure to record every single event happened. However, police is losing its primary purpose with an inability to record everything. What would be the point of police body camera if they lose the primary purpose; to record everything to keep the fair system. Besides the inability to record everything, it also causes the cost problem. According to LA times, the one which really costs is “storage” expenses, not the cost of the police body camera. In a survey taken by 40 actual police officers, 40 percent of them mentioned the cost as their primary problem or barrier of police body camera. As it records every events happened, it is against police officers’ privacy. The police body camera emerged as a solution to keeping with human’s basic right by getting rid of the discrimination. But it contradicts the statement by not keeping with the police officers’ right. African American and police officers’ right are equally significant. Hence, police body camera cannot be the best solution.
As I discussed the topic, I thought that “police body camera” can be a double-edged sword. However, in spite of both disadvantages and advantages, I believe that police camera is strongly needed because there is no way to protect citizens from discrimination other than police body camera.