Police Body Camera
Most police or law enforcement departments in the United States seem to equip their police officers with body cameras when on duty, but, regrettably, few departments have policies that regulate who can access the police body camera footage. For instance, in some American states such as North Carolina, there is an ongoing bill that prevents the general public from accessing body camera footage from police departments without a valid court order of which its so unfair to the public (Fan,2016).
Releasing police body camera footage for every single interaction between the police officers and the civilians will have some negative impacts on individual privacy and confidentiality. However, in my view, I think it’s fair and just for the camera footage and audio recordings from the police to be made available to society. This is because public support for the video footage will provide transparency and adequate accountability of most police departments by allowing the public to view whether officers behave appropriately during controversial occasions. Denial to body camera footage to the public fails to provide transparency to most Americans, and lack of transparency, along with the accountability of the police department, leads to public mistrust (Lin et al.,2016).
Due to high police shootings of members of the public in 2015, an investigation showed that more than 80% of police departments were planning to enforce body camera footage because these videos and audio recordings serve a valuable function in enhancing police accountability. On balance between transparency and privacy, some limits are set by law enforcers on the types of footage the public should access and view. Some states protect police controversial video footage and audio recordings from the public during an ongoing police investigation. For instance, California state indefinitely holds police department records from the audience during any legal investigation (Lin,2016).
References
Fan, M. D. (2016). Privacy, public disclosure, police body cameras: Policy splits. Ala. L. Rev., 68, 395.
Lin, R. (2016). Police body-worn cameras and privacy: Retaining benefits while reducing public concerns. Duke L. & Tech. Rev., 14, 346.