Sara IRL | John Caedan

This is shocking.

So much grief and animosity could be avoided, simply by putting body-worn cameras on agents of law enforcement.

It's not a small claim. It is huge.
To reduce complaints against police by 87%?
To reduce Police use-of-force by almost 60%?

Tony Farrar, Chief of the Rialto, California, Police Department, led a long-term experiment with body-worn cameras, and published a scientific paper on the stunning results. Here is a story on the project, with links to the published results.

Click here for article and deeper links.

One commentator said the experiment “showed that evidence-capture is just one output of body-worn video, and the technology is perhaps most effective at actually preventing escalation during police-public interactions: whether abusive behavior towards police or unnecessary use-of-force by police.”

During the 12-month Rialto experiment, use-of-force by officers wearing cameras fell by 59 percent and complaints against officers dropped by 87 percent compared to the previous year’s totals.

If this scenario is accurate, it breaks the heart. Obviously, it has been far too easy to lodge frivolous and/or malicious complaints against police and far too easy for police to deploy force unnecessarily, at will. Moreover, it breaks the heart that this study has not been followed up by a full-steam-ahead effort to enable the technology.

It does lift the heart, however. We could heal.

This is shocking.

So much grief and animosity could be avoided, simply by putting body-worn cameras on agents of law enforcement.

It's not a small claim. It is huge.
To reduce complaints against police by 87%?
To reduce Police use-of-force by almost 60%?

Click here for article and deeper links.

During the 12-month Rialto experiment, use-of-force by officers wearing cameras fell by 59 percent and complaints against officers dropped by 87 percent compared to the previous year’s totals.

It does lift the heart, however. We could heal.