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Why Are Body Cameras Important

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With so many incidents occurring between law enforcement and civilians, it’s about time we have our officers wear body cameras. Law enforcement wants to use body cameras, many politicians are in favor for them, Civil-rights groups are advocating them, and communities that already have a strong police presence in their neighborhoods are requesting that the police get cameras now. With the uproar of law enforcement and the death of many black American’s, body cameras can be very useful. There is always that missing link when trying to put these horrible moments back together. Far too many times we end up with the suspect dead and only get one side of the story. With the use of body cameras, we can now get more insight on the events that happen (Boyd, 2015).
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At the beginning of the study, police commanders were apprehensive, they felt that body-worn cameras might cause officers to center their time on dispatched calls, instead of networking with citizens. This was found not to be the case, suggesting that body-worn cameras allow officers to record suspicious events on the street before starting contact with a suspect. This could give more explanation and confidence to initiate encounters. Overall, officers are actually more active when wearing cameras, without aggregating their use of aggressive strategies that threatened the validity of the organization, like unwarranted stop and frisks and misdemeanor arrests (Stanley, 2015). Monitoring police behavior and demonstrating accountability are in the community’s interest as well as police departments’. Achieving this will require great attention to the transmission of recorded information honestly, as conflicting stories may come into play regarding how the content of officer recordings are conveyed to the

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