Are Cameras The Key?

We live in a world driven by technology.  Every where we look, someone is either on their cell phone, typing on their computer or using a camera of some sort. The Police forces throughout America also use this technology, especially cameras. There has been a significant increase in body cameras throughout the United States police forces due to the incidents like Michael Brown. However,  the question becomes, "Are these cameras really worth the cost, better yet, do they help to make a difference?"

To start, our government plans to put ample amounts of money into body cameras.  Many believe that these cameras will help law enforcement re-establish trust with the American people. According to  USA Today, the Obama administration will spend 20 million dollars, in order to implement body cameras throughout our country.  David Jackson from USA today, stated that, "of the $20 million grant announced Friday, the Justice Department said 17 million dollars will be devoted to "the purchase of body-worn cameras, $2 million for training and technical assistance and $1 million for the development of evaluation tools to study best practices"."  With all this money being put into this part of America's police forces it shouldn't be surprising that according to Katie Delong from Fox6news, out of the 18,000 police forces throughout our nation, one third of those are using body cameras.  However, we can imagine that with the millions of dollars being put into this technology more and more police forces across the country will have this technology.

With all this money being put into this new techonlogy we must ask, do these cameras really work? We first must look at the events that occurred in Ferguson, Missouri with Michael Brown.  Think about if the officer was wearing a body camera, a lot of unanswered questions would be answered as to what really took place between the white officer and young Michael Brown.  There was a case in Arizona however, where an officer was wearing a body camera while answering a domestic abuse call. As reported by Katie Delong from Fox6news, the man eventually pulled out a gun and shot the officer, and thanks to the body camera that he was wearing, all of the events were caught on tape.  In this case we really don't have any unanswered questions about the crime that took place due to the body camera.

We now understand that body cameras help us answer questions. But do they actually help decrease violence is the real question? There was a study done by the University of South Florida , according to the Huffington Post's, Nick Wing found that body cameras do decrease violence.  Throughout their study, which took place over the course of a year, the university studied 89 police officers.  Of those officers only 46 wore body cameras while the other 43 did not.  As the Huffington Post's, Nick Wing reported, the university found that "use-of-force incidents, dropped 53 percent among officers with cameras". The, University of South Florida  study also found a decrease in civilian injuries when officers wore body cameras.  There was also a study done in California by Barak Ariel, William Farrar and Alex Sutherland  according to the Huffington Post's, Nick Wing that did a similar experiment and they found that found a "59 percent drop in incidents when officers wore body cameras and 87% drop in complaints by citizens".  Clearly we see that the cameras do help, I mean after all the camera doesn't lie.

While body cameras do help to answer a lot of our questions and decrease violence, there are some out there that feel that they shouldn't be used.  Privacy is a major concern with these cameras; this idea that everything that officers are saying is being captured on tape concerns many.  Another major concern is the cost of these cameras, however if this device will help to develop trust back from the American people when it comes to America's police officers, then it's worth it.

As millions and millions of dollars are being put into this technology, we can only hope that these cameras will yet again help the American people to trust those that are there to protect them.  Time and time again studies have found that these cameras do help to decrease violence which can only help in combating police brutality.  Some may see this technology as pricey, but we must remember that cameras don't lie and these cameras may bring the American people and police officers together.



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Forget the Guns?

It shouldn't be a surprise to many that the United States has more guns on its soil than any other country in the world. CNN claims that "civilians in the United States own about 270 million guns". Two hundred and seventy million is higher than the population of some countries around the world. Throughout President Obama's Presidency, fifteen different times he was called to the podium to give a speech about gun violence after a major shooting CNN reports. The saddest part is, it doesn't seem that the gun laws in our country have made any progress and it doesn't look like they are going to change anytime soon.

With the amount of guns that are in the United States, one would think that the amount of deaths by fire arm would increase as well and that it has. The Washington Post stated that "for the first time in more than 60 years, firearms and automobiles are killing Americans at an identical rate, according to the new mortality data revealed this month by the center for Disease Control and Prevention". In addition, there are twenty one states in the United States where the number of those shot and killed by guns has out numbered those who die in car crash, as reported by the Washington Post. Among those states are Washington, Oregon and Hawaii. Eventually, gun violence will be the leading cause of death in the United States and in order to combat this issue we must look at how other countries and their police forces did with lethal force.


The United States needs to look to others around the world in order to combat police brutality. There are more than five countries throughout the world whose police officer do not carry guns when on duty. According to the Washington Post,  Britain, Ireland, Iceland and New Zealand are countries where officers do not carry guns. Some may argue that officers in the United States need to carry guns due to the fact that millions of people have guns in the United States. However, the Washington Post claims that "in Iceland, one-third of all citizens are armed but police officers are not most of the time". We also need to look at Ireland and see that in this country, when officers go to training they aren't even taught how to use a gun.  In addition, there was a survey done in Great Britian where about 82 percent of cops as reported by the Washington Post, stated that they didn't want to carry guns. One can imagine that if this survey was done in the United States the outcome would be vastly different due to the lack of trust we see between society and the American Police force.

So the question arises if cops don't carry guns how will they protect themselves? If the recent incidents that have been occurring all over the country with police brutality, some are proposing stun guns. The conflict with these stun guns is that they are just as deadly and the LA time claims that, " this type of gun would give off an electric shock, and officials have discovered that the use of this stun gone can lead to serious physical harm as well as causes some serious health issues".  In addition, a professor from Rutger University Police Institutes Wayne Fisher claims that, there is many technical problems with these stun guns. He explained to the  LA Times that, "there has to be time to deploy the stun gun and it's not always readily available". Also we must take into consideration that as Professor Wayne stated, " if an armed offender is closing in on the officer, it's necessary at that point to use the level of fore which is the highest opportunity for stopping the armed aggressor, and that would be a firearm".  These stun guns do not provide the highest means of force and leave police at a disadvantages when they are faced with criminal who have actually guns.

All and all, reforms for gun laws need to be made by the government first if we want to limit the amount of deaths we have by guns. It scary to think that car crashes and guns are killing people at the same rate. Other controls have led the way when it comes to using a gun, the bottom line is they don't use them. Many may argue that these countries in Europe that don't have officer carry guns are significantly smaller than the United States which is true, however, look at Iceland,  the Washington Post claims that, over 25 percent of its population carries guns, making it the 15 most armed country in the world and they have little to no gun violence. We must find an alternative beside stun guns, that when used do not cause serious harm and prevent health issues  and wouldn't put the cops at a disadvantage. If we are able to do all these things than we will be one step closer to combating police brutality here in the United States.