Cameras for accountability

By Devin Belle

Who am I

• Devin Belle

• Born in Richmond VA

• 20 years old

• Student at Virginia commonwealth University

• I chose this topic because of the recent events of the Micheal Brown shooting

ThesisAuthorities should wear body cameras on their person at all

times in order to reduce the amount of police brutality victims in America

What is Police Brutality

The use of excessive physical force or verbal assault and phsycological intimidation.

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Micheal Brown

• On August 9, 2014, Micheal Brown was shot and killed by a Ferguson Missouri Police officer

• Due to the lack of the lack of evidence from this incident, rioting and violence has occurred in Ferguson with the masses outraged

Albuquerque incident

• In March of 2014, a homeless man was killed by police officials, however this incident was recorded.

• As a result the police department has come under fire from the local justice departments.

Experiment

• Tony Farrar conducted an experiment where he wanted to test the behaviors of people under mobile camera surveillance.

Hypothesis

• “We hypothesize that portable cameras would go beyond the limited impact that CCTVs have had on expressive acts of violence in public spaces.”

Procedure

• Rialto Police Department wore mobile cameras for a week

• The control were police officers that didn’t wear these cameras

Both of these groups had to fill out a document of what happened after each outing during the experiment. These documents were collected along with police complaints during each outing.

Results/Conclusion

• “The findings suggest more than a 50% reduction in the total number of incidents of use-of-force compared to control-conditions, and nearly ten times more citizens’ complaints in the 12-months prior to the experiment.”

• Farrar Concluded that these results at the very least give people a way to measure police misconduct in the force.

Works Cited

• Chaney and Robertson. “Racism and Police Brutality in America.”12 January 2013: Journal of African American Studies. pp 1-26., print.

• Farrar Tony. The Effect of Body Worn Cameras on Police Use of Force. Police Foundation, 2013, http://www.policefoundation.org/content/body-worn-camera, 16 November 2014

• Fitzpatrick and Griffin. “Video Shows Albuquerque Police Killing Homeless Man.” CNN. 22 June 2014, cnn.com, 16 November 2014

• Lawrence Regina, “The Politics of Force Media and the Construction of Police Brutality.” University of California Press. 2000. Print

• “Timeline: Michael Brown Shooting in Ferguson MO.” usatoday.com. Usatoday, n.d.