Police Complaints Drop 93 Percent After Deploying Body Cameras (techcrunch.com) 332
An anonymous reader writes:A study from Cambridge University documents an immense drop in complaints against police officers when their departments began using body cameras. But even more surprising is that the data suggests everyone is on their best behavior whether the cameras are present or not. The data was collected in seven police departments, and represents over 1.4 million hours logged by 1,847 officers in 2014 and 2015; the researchers published their data last week in the journal Criminal Justice and Behavior. Officers were randomly assigned to wear or not wear cameras week by week (about half would be wearing them any given week), and had to keep them on during all encounters. The authors used complaints against police as a metric because they're easy to measure, an established practice in most police forces and give a good ballpark of the frequency of problematic behavior. In the year before the study, 1,539 complaints in total were filed against officers; at the end of the body camera experiment, the year had only yielded 113 complaints.
Correlation? (Score:5, Interesting)
When I saw this earlier, I wondered if it's A) the small group of inherently bad cops curbing their bad behavior now that they are being monitored; or B) fewer [perceived] opportunities for dishonestly reported complaints. I imagine it is some combination of the two.
The police know they're wearing cameras (Score:2)
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Re:Correlation? (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, both of them make sense together, given what you said. Citizens (particularly those likely to misbehave or file complaints) may have heard that officers in their district are wearing cameras, but don't know which cops are wearing them, so they behave as if all cops they encounter are. The cops, OTOH, always know when they are wearing a camera, so such a great drop in complaints makes less sense from their side. Most likely, of course, it's a combination of factors.
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Actually, both of them make sense together, given what you said. Citizens (particularly those likely to misbehave or file complaints) may have heard that officers in their district are wearing cameras, but don't know which cops are wearing them, so they behave as if all cops they encounter are. The cops, OTOH, always know when they are wearing a camera, so such a great drop in complaints makes less sense from their side. Most likely, of course, it's a combination of factors.
And here's another factor -- what about the massive media coverage of cops' abuses caught on camera -- frequently by bystanders --- in the past couple years? I couldn't find a link to the actual study in TFA, so did they also examine complaint trends in places that did NOT institute body cameras at all?
Seemingly every other week in the past few years there's been massive coverage of some abuse of cops caught on camera killing or injuring some unarmed person... it may be that such acts were caught on cam
Re:Correlation? (Score:5, Interesting)
Spoke to a local police chief. When someone wants to file a complaint, he offers to review the patrol car / body cam video with them. If its a legit complaint, he wants to see the video. If not, the offer to review the video usually causes the complaint to be withdrawn.
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I find it harder to accept the opposite side, that the citizen having decides they can't misbehave and/or complain. The first assumption being that they citizens even know that cop is wearing a cam. It's not at all obvious to someone unfamiliar which such devices that that's what it is. Two it doesn't reasonably allow for the >50% drop in reports since only half the cops are wearing them at any given time.
You're assuming that a cop wouldn't know when a complaint is likely to be filed, I doubt it's often that cops that back to the station and go "Lolwut I got a complaint, WTF?" I expect that almost all those who allege abuse will complain on the spot and threaten to report it. And a whole lot of potential complaints will go away by replying "Go right ahead sir, I have it all on camera including you giving me the finger and saying unkind things about my mother." and most will figure out they maybe don't actual
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Since the cameras were only worn half the time, fewer opportunities for dishonestly reported complaints could only result in a (maximum) 50% decline in complaints, not 90%.
Flawed Assumption (Score:2)
The fact that there are *daily* reports from all over the country of cops abusing their authority in various ways and being caught engaging in criminal acts themselves debunks your assumption.
Policing problems in the USA are institutional. The personnel issues are symptoms of the larger sickness. Body camera deployments here bear out my contention: how many incidents of violent polic
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The problem that seems to be more universal is the willingness of all of the other police to cover for the worst offenders. A cop who probably wo
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I also wonder if this helps to improve overall morale, which I believe has been generally abysmal for the last three years. I suspect conscientious officers not only bear the mental burdens of their own actions, but of their fellow officers as well. Knowing that any officer in their department making a visibly questionable arrest or using excessive/deadly force can bring a town to its knees and undo any good the collective department has done to that point has got to be discouraging. A boost in morale ca
Great deterrent against (Score:2, Insightful)
- Stupid behavior by the public
- Stupid behavior by the police force
- Stupid and frivolous complaints
- Random appearances of Big Foot
- Slowing down the implementation of police state where all activity is monitored
- Non-compliance with Privacy Laws
It goes both ways... (Score:5, Insightful)
Police don't want to be filmed doing dumb shit.
Citizens stop acting like jackasses when they too are being filmed.
Situations don't escalate as frequently.
Re:It goes both ways... (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder if this doesn't drive a secondary effect as well. It's not uncommon for a limited number of individuals to be the source of many police interactions. If a lot of those interactions are hostile, on the part of one or the other party, (or both) it creates a toxic relationship. If these interactions have a damper, such as a camera and some better behavior some percentage of the time, I wonder if that doesn't have a calming effect.
Whether or not it's my fault, if I'm getting harassed by the cops all the time, I'm likely going to be an asshole when I see them. But if half the time they are friendly and respectful, just doing their job, it dampens the hate. If half of the time I see that I'm on camera and I bite my tongue and say, "Yeah, sure officer. No problems here." those officers are less fired up and cautious the next time we meet. I could easily see this being a positive behavior feedback loop, where before we had a negative behavior feedback loop.
just buy fake cams (Score:2)
Not just complaints (Score:5, Informative)
Convictions and and plea deals change A LOT with body cameras. Before, you put someone in a suit and train them to say "Yes Sir/No Sir" in front of the judge. Then give the judge and everyone else the dog and pony show of how he's an A student and wants to start a business taking care of puppies. This trick doesn't work so well when there is video of a raving lunatic high on drugs taking swings at the cops.
Stop treating this like it were binary (Score:4, Insightful)
Too many folks are treating this problem as though it were binary; it's all the cops fault, or it's all the suspect's faults.
The problem is more nuanced than that. In part it's an ignorant and entitled public who think they can act like little shits and endanger others because of feelings. On the other, you have officers trained in what seem to be brutal methods but are, in fact are designed to minimize harm by controlling the situation. This works out mostly in the public's favor, although they'll never realize it.
You do have a few bad eggs, as with any profession. The untrained, the illsuited or the downright malicious. However, I'd suggest that these folks account for a small percentage of officers.
If it were just the first two factors, the problem could be relatively simply solved. The problem is that politicians get involved, folks who have a vested interest in making sure that the problem never gets solved. Thus, we end up where we are.
Re:Stop treating this like it were binary (Score:4, Funny)
In part it's an ignorant and entitled public who think they can act like little shits and endanger others because of feelings.
I'm not entitled... it's just that my feelings are more important than yours. ;-)
Re:Stop treating this like it were binary (Score:5, Insightful)
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A valid point.
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Americans lose six times as much to police theft vs. burglaries, year after year.
Until something is done about 'civil confiscation' police will be treated like the thieves they are.
I trust police about 1/6 as much as I trust professional burglars.
Weather the truly corrupt represent 50% of cops or 99% doesn't really matter when institutional corruption is SOP.
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On one hand, you have bad cops - and "good" cops who don't turn the bad cops, and are corrupted by that and are therefore "good" instead of good.
On the other hand, you have any other job, where there is a balancing act of "getting the job done" and weeding out bad behavior. You have to get the job done, and you can only police your coworkers to a certain extent. You can report bad behavior, but it erodes your environment. Without higher
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It's not that most officers are bad people. It's that authority corrupts people. When you put people in authoritarian positions, they become transformed into assholes.
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A valid point, absolutely. Power does corrupt, and any reaching for it should be met with the utmost suspicion ( trump, hillary...but that's another discussion entirely ). Cameras go a long way in addressing that, and I don't wish to be perceived as discouraging their use. I'm a huge advocate for 24/7 recording of any on duty public official, cops especially.
Likewise, I'm a fan of citizen education. I want citizens put through the same threat neutralizing course that officers are. I want them to unders
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You do have a few bad eggs, as with any profession.
It's not just a few bad eggs. It's all the other eggs that support the bad eggs, cover up their lies, refuse to hold the bad eggs accountable for their actions. So many of the eggs are rotten in this way, often without even realizing it, that any egg that does try to speak up will get broken and thrown out in no time.
But soon the cameras will be useless (Score:2)
see http://www.wral.com/new-nc-bod... [wral.com]
Treating the symptom (Score:5, Insightful)
While we're basking in the glow of the decrease in complaints against police, let's not lose sight of the fact that the paternalistic hand of body-cam surveillance is simply treating a symptom, not the disease that causes it. If our society's overall psychological health were such that citizens weren't routinely afraid of and/or abusive of police, and police didn't routinely brutalize minor criminals and even innocent citizens, then body cameras wouldn't be necessary. When good behaviour, respect, and mutual tolerance can only be guaranteed when "someone's watching", then we live in an immature and ailing culture. We need to address that problem; police body cameras are a dirty band-aid on a wound that ultimately requires disinfectant, stitches, antibiotics, and time to heal.
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You're not wrong, but sometimes in the short term you have to treat the symptom.
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This isn't analogous to physical injury, it's a matter of behavior. If the cameras get the police to act more responsibly in public, and the public gets used to greater police responsibility, or at worst provide evidence against murder by cop that leads to prosecution, tensions will be down on both sides.
Sometimes the way to attack a behavioral problem is to fake it until you make it.
In other news- 911 calls down too (Score:3)
I just read that due to fear of the police, and a belief they won't help you anyhow --- calls to 911 are down drastically too.
Apparently being nice is good for business. Or being really brutal.
http://www.theatlantic.com/pol... [theatlantic.com]
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Correlation does not equal causation. (Score:2)
But even more surprising is that the data suggests everyone is on their best behavior whether the cameras are present or not.
Sounds like this is less about the cameras reducing shenanigans and more about the two parties not wanting to become the next "officer shot an unarmed suspect" news story. So it's more a change in behavior due to current political climate.
something I was told (Score:3)
I was told by a defense attorney that my state or maybe the city I was in used to have cruiser dashcams (which would have helped greatly in my case), but they were removed because statistically in court it tended to hurt the prosecution more than it did the defense. I guess someone did an analysis. Police routinely lie on the stand and any audio or video footage makes that much harder to do.
To anyone living in the real world this shouldn't be very surprising of course, but most people probably have had too little contact with real police officers to know this. There is a strong tendency for people to believe in the police image as portrayed in TV and film. But those people are actors who themselves don't really know what it is like to actually be a cop.
Re:Of course (Score:4, Insightful)
So you don't think that just perhaps the officers wearing cameras were behaving better knowing they were being recorded?
It seems to me that to place all of the blame on one side is rather narrow minded of you.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
While I'll grant you that the data can be explained by competing theories, in this case only half the officers had cameras on. That certainly suggests that it's not limited to officer behavior.
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It's a possibility. However, it goes against everything we know about how people work. Implied habitual behaviors, shared by a dept, radically changing virtually overnight is unlikely. In the extreme.
Even if you had one or two statistical outliers who did modify their behaviors in such a way, you'd have far more who get tripped up and shit would get on camera.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
The behavior already changed radically and virtually overnight. The only matter up for debate is why.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
The behavior change stays when off camera for a simple reason: knowledge that data comparison can be used against you.
Officer john wears the camera one week and gets 3 complaints. Next week he doesn't wear the camera and gets 30 complaints. It's safe to infer he behaves like an asshole when off-camera, so, to counter that, he is NOT an asshole even when not wearing the camera.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
I doubt many police like getting tons of complaints, so he was happier when his complaint count went down.
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Re:Of course (Score:5, Interesting)
You don't have to believe, you just have to draw eyes on the wall...
Wired [wired.com]
New Scientist [newscientist.com]
Scientific American [scientificamerican.com]
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Officer john wears the camera one week and gets 3 complaints. Next week he doesn't wear the camera and gets 30 complaints. It's safe to infer he behaves like an asshole when off-camera, so, to counter that, he is NOT an asshole even when not wearing the camera.
An alternate explanation would be that people don't make as many false complaints when there's video evidence available.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Likely, but complaints dropped even when the officer wasn't wearing a camera: "But even more surprising is that the data suggests everyone is on their best behavior whether the cameras are present or not... Officers were randomly assigned to wear or not wear cameras week by week (about half would be wearing them any given week), and had to keep them on during all encounters."
It is also possible that even though an officer was not wearing a camera, they were on their best behavior for fear that another officer who was wearing a camera might show up to assist and capture their bad behavior.
Re:Of course (Score:4, Insightful)
Likely, but complaints dropped even when the officer wasn't wearing a camera: "But even more surprising is that the data suggests everyone is on their best behavior whether the cameras are present or not... Officers were randomly assigned to wear or not wear cameras week by week (about half would be wearing them any given week), and had to keep them on during all encounters."
So... how exactly does the average perp (who isn't exactly a cyberpunk hacker-type dude) actually know if there was or wasn't a camera present? Probably wouldn't.
It's also highly likely that once reaching jail, said perp would likely try to lodge a complaint, whereupon the jailer would simply say "you know they're wearing body cameras nowadays, right?" This would cause said perp to drop the complaint, knowing that if it were all recorded, his story would most likely carry little-to-no water.
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I think that is the point. The officers are in know enough know exactly when they are being recorded. And yet we do not see any statistical anomalies that show that they act differently. But all the criminals likely know is that some big body-cam roll out happened last year and everything is not being recorded. It is likely how everyone drives slower because their might be a cop around the next corner. In this situation, it is exactly because their is never any change that outcome that primary change must o
Goes both ways (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure there's a fair amount of people out there who also made spurious complaints against the police, and if recorded wouldn't make that complaint as well.
I don't think the bad behaviour leading to complaints is entirely on one side - I'm fairly certain that the cameras cut down on naughty police behaviour and also on false claims by the non-police.
To be honest - there are some pretty strong arguments to wear the camera by "good" cops, in that it serves to protect them from bad people.
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Agreed. Very few people (police included) wake up and say "I want to be a jerk today, escalate lots of situations, get complaints filed against me, and be in a bad mood all day 'cos I didn't abuse someone enough."
Once they see being reasonable, and taking the professional stance, works as well or better than abusing the other person, they internalize the new behavior pretty fast. They probably go home feeling more professional and happier, camera or no camera.
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While I'll grant you that the data can be explained by competing theories, in this case only half the officers had cameras on. That certainly suggests that it's not limited to officer behavior.
Assuming that officers worked in pairs and given that the cameras were randomly assigned, any given team will not have a camera only 25% of the time.
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Another officer on the scene might have a camera.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
I find it difficult to attribute a preponderance of the change onto the public. The individuals who might have normally filed a complaint would have no inclination to not file a complaint when the officer in question was not wearing a camera.
If the reduction in complaints matched the likely hood that a camera was involved, sure, I'd agree that the numbers track. I find it far more likely that the officers, knowing there's a chance that someone is recording (themselves, their partner, or another unit that shows up) are acting on their best behavior in all cases and thsi have a larger impact on the overall results.
The two factors together are likely what is influencing the outcomes.
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In fact, that would be the simplest way.
In order to believe that those not filed would have been mostly frivolous, it would mean that the would-be complainers would be very aware of the body cameras. I'd wager that the only party that is very aware of the body camera most of the time is the officer.
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Specifics on how exactly this is happening are unclear. Is the officer less confrontational to begin with, avoiding escalation? Or are suspects and complainants more wary of their conduct? Is it some combination of the two, or are even more factors involved? To determine these things would be a far more complex and subtle piece of research, but the study does suggest that officer behavior is probably the most affected, and that other effects flow from that.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
We've put cameras everywhere. People now routinely carry them in their pockets. We have not photographed Bigfoot. We have no video of aliens. The existence of the Loch Ness monster is not a proven fact.
We have hours and hours of video of corrupt cops. We have video of cops shooting unarmed people. We have video of cops beating unarmed people. We have video of people being arrested and phones being smashed simply because cops believed they were being filmed.
Yes, when cops carry cameras, and their activities are recorded, and they know this, and they can not turn them off, their behavior changes. For the better.
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We've put cameras everywhere. People now routinely carry them in their pockets. We have not photographed Bigfoot. We have no video of aliens. The existence of the Loch Ness monster is not a proven fact.
On the other hand there was convincing evidence of Bishopville South Carolina's lizard man caught on camera in the last couple of years.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... [huffingtonpost.com]
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So you don't think that just perhaps the officers wearing cameras were behaving better
Did you read TFA? Or the summary? Complaints against the police went down. So the police were behaving better, or perhaps there were fewer false complaints.
It seems to me that to place all of the blame on one side is rather narrow minded of you.
The summary says "everyone" behaved better, and does specifically blame either side. TFA implies that police behavior changed.
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I would say it's a mix of all of the above. Not all cops are assholes and the public are angels. Each has it's share of bad apples. I've seen my fare share of videos where people antagonize police for a reaction.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Usually it is brutality causing a feedback of intensity. The police man stops a guy, he is tense, that makes the policeman tense, which makes the guy defensive, which make the policeman to be more aggressive, that makes the guy feeling like he will need to fight to protect himself, which causes the policeman to fight back... With this feedback loop someone will cross the line first.
Having the camera, makes the guy less defensive, as he knows if something does happen to him there will be evidence, and the same with the policeman. Which desculates the feedback loop, as it puts a gap in the emotional response, knowing whoever crosses the line first will be the one who loses.
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Are you kidding, the escalation was planned from the day of application to the academy. Only the crafty ones get through with that agenda in mind, though - there are actually psych profiles that filter out the worst of the "gonna crack me some heads" abused children looking for payback.
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Filtering out the psychos during application would work, except that the Stanford prison experiment showed us that even if you put psychologically healthy people in police roles, they get abusive.
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Milgram was the best, all it takes is an authority figure telling someone to be a monster and 9/10 will comply. The Blue Line is a logical extension - it's better to be a monster than to rat out your buddies, especially those in charge.
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which could be solved very quickly with a simple reg that no city would have the stones to make.
In any and all cases where a camera has been issued to the officer
1 the officer shall do a functional check of said camera before each shift and shall get the camera replaced if it does not function (to include a check of any and all storage devices) before leaving the issuing area.
2 if any complaints are filed or a reportable incident occurs and the resulting recording is missing or otherwise corrupt then the co
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You forgot the /sarc
Re: Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Blacks are shot by police in excess when compared to their % of population, but less than would be expected based on their % of violent criminal population.
Now is where SJWs yell that % of criminal population is a 'racist statistic'.
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"Now is where SJWs yell that % of criminal population is a 'racist statistic'."
What about the statistic that minorities are stopped, ticketes or incarcerated at much higher rates for the same non-violent offenses?
Is that racist? Against whom?
Re: Of course (Score:5, Informative)
I see an AC has already responded to you but let me add a comment since I've recently found some reports about New York City's stop & frisk.
Data archives for 2003 - 2015 are at http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/h... [nyc.gov]
Out of 5 MILLION stops in ~12 years, 25% were young black men but they make up NOT EVEN TWO PERCENT of NYC's population.
The percentage of stops annually where the suspect was found to be innocent was never below 75% and usually above 85%
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Pretty much what I was thinking. Fewer complaints because they know they would be in the wrong....
Police behave better when being watched (Score:2)
Pretty much what I was thinking. Fewer complaints because they know they would be in the wrong....
Or MUCH more likely, the police behaved themselves better because they were being watched. The police know they have cameras. It's unlikely most people interacting with police were aware of the cameras. Most logical conclusion is that the police started minding their manners when on camera. Better behaved police = fewer complaints.
ANY mix is good. (Score:2)
[maybe it's] Fewer [bogus] complaints because they know they would be [detected to be] in the wrong....
Or MUCH more likely, the police behaved themselves better because they were being watched [and knew the cameras were there even if the people they interacted with did not].
I don't really care how much of it is formerly bad-behaving policemen avoiding the harassment of civilians and how much is bad-behaving civilians avoiding the filing fake harassment reports to inconvenience and deflect the attention of
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Uh...I find that difficult to believe....considering it looks like a giant armored webcam with a microphone. Its normally sitting right on their chest so it's kinda hard to miss...
Anyway it doesn't matter, if it's helping out then I say right on.
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I'm wondering if a double-blind test with dummy cameras would answer any questions.
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The first time this statistic was calculated (for some rich CA coastal town) the 'cop suckers' claimed the same thing. Problem was: they hadn't told anybody but the cops.
Re:Oh, Democracy... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you mean "Oh, Science..."
The majority of studies show that accident rates go up, not down, when red-light cameras are put in place. Eliminating red-light cameras is the logical response.
This study shows that complaints go down, not up, when police use body cameras. The logical response would be to continue using body cameras and continue studying the results to verify that the effect isn't temporary or isolated.
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Citation missing.
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As is yours.
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Up yours. Which of my claims do wish to see substantiated with a citation?
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Your implicit claim that accident rates remain the same or go down when red light cameras are used.
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If we take your approach towards the burden of proof, any defendant rejecting his guilt would have to present evidence of his innocence.
Thus your approach is incorrect. Fail.
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This isn't a criminal trial.
I'm guessing you have no evidence whatsoever to support your side. You may even know it.
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And the affirmative claim (implied) is that there is some sort of hypocracy to supporting police body cameras but opposing red light cameras.
So it is your burden to show that they are substantially similar in effect such that one should support both or neither.
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I can help with that:
http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/s... [bigthink.com]
And here are links to the actual studies (11 of which are peer-reviewed).
https://www.motorists.org/issu... [motorists.org]
Re:Oh, Democracy... (Score:5, Informative)
The majority of studies show that accident rates go up, not down, when red-light cameras are put in place.
Accident rates may go up (or stay the same) but death rates go down.
The increase in accidents is less dangerous relatively slow speed rear end collisions, while
side on higher speed, and so more deadly, rates go down.
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/public... [dot.gov]
Keep your distance (Score:2)
The increase in accidents is less dangerous relatively slow speed rear end collisions, while
side on higher speed, and so more deadly, rates go down.
While can't you people on your side of the pond keep your distance with the person in front of you ?
Most driving code/law require the driver to keep enough braking distance in front.
(If you can't stop suddenly, then it's your fault than you didn't leave enough distance to be able to / weren't attentive enough).
---
Said as someone who drives mostly in northern Europe
---
Yes, I know, the situation is quite different in southern France or Italy.
---
And anyway the whole point is quickly becoming moot as most Europ
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This makes no sense. The most dangerous red light violations are the ones where the runner is totally oblivious to the traffic light (sleeping, drunk, talking to a passenger, etc). A camera wouldn't help under those circumstances. Red light cameras only change behavior in those cases where the driver sees running as a choice - during the first few seconds or when there is obviously no one coming on the cross street. These aren't the dangerous cases.
On the other hand, red light cameras increase rear-end coll
Re:Oh, Democracy... (Score:5, Informative)
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Not the OP, but here is a citation [bigthink.com].
However, I would say the jury is still out as this is a small effect and is one study. It looks like they reduce head on and head to side crashes that are caused when a car runs a red light, but they increase or do not effect rear end crashes when a lead car stops, but a following car does not stop. The head on and head to side crashes are deadlier than the rear end crashes (insert pinto, corsair and Kardashian jokes here).
You can also find studies [atsol.com], on the sites of red-
Re:Oh, Democracy... (Score:5, Interesting)
Citation? start here [lmgtfy.com]. While not being particularly effective at modifying driver behavior (see aforementioned link), they are also not impartial. While they may capture a vehicle and it's operator (maybe) in the middle of a crossing, they do not provide the context. They do not make the observation that the city rigged the yellow lights to be impractically short, they do not even make the observation that the light was in fact red prior to the driver entering the intersection.
This is in contrast to a police body cam which records the video and audio of a police encounter from start to conclusion providing full and usually easy to understand context.
Re:Oh, Democracy... (Score:5, Interesting)
Troll alert. This is apples and rotten oranges...
These body cameras are intrusive and over the top when it comes to personal privacy, but if you believe the news reports coming out of police departments, cops actually like them after having to wear them for a while. No more BS, "he said/she said" issues; And I'm sure that cops love not having to deal with paperwork over unfounded cop complaints.
OTOH, red light cameras (and speed cameras) were put in place as a "sin tax" revenue grab by government officials/councilmen/legislators that usually had personal vendettas against rude/aggressive drivers. Those naive officials were easy prey for the real bandits - companies like ATS and Redflex, whose CEO was bribing city officials to get the revenue generators installed in as many places as possible.
Body cameras: Enormous drop in police complaints, and both sides like the extra clarity they provide to litigious and/or life or death situations. Red light cameras: mixed safety results, bogged-down municipal courts, confusion [nbclosangeles.com], outright corruption [fbi.gov], and even murder generation [phoenixnewtimes.com].
Of course these days, who cares about facts. Perception is reality...
Re:If you didn't RTFA... (Score:5, Interesting)
Easy to verify: give randomly fake cameras to policemen where they know it's fake but people could not see it. If you still see the drop, then it's people stopping stupid behavior, if not then it's policemen behaving better.
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Agreed, easy to verify. Not something I can do....I assume not something you can do.
My main point was, don't assume it is the bad officers stopped being bad like a lot of people might assume these days. Article says, say drop, but don't know reason. Current political climate makes it likely a lot of people would go to the bad officers stop thing. Maybe it is, but I know quite a few police officers and so I don't tend to look at them as bad people.
I did then offer my opinion on why, but that is why I put
Re:If you didn't RTFA... (Score:5, Insightful)
Easy to verify: give randomly fake cameras to policemen where they know it's fake but people could not see it. If you still see the drop, then it's people stopping stupid behavior, if not then it's policemen behaving better.
Sounds great until you have a sensitive case where bystanders saw the cop had a camera but guess what, no footage. Conspiracy theorists will love that one, if you're wearing a camera it better be filming. If it's defective or off it's better that you phsyically remove it.
Re:If you didn't RTFA... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why should we conduct an experiment which risks more police abuse or false complaints resulting in possible unjust deaths or unjust suspensions, just so people with a political axe to grind can say "I told you so"?
Re: (Score:2)
I would guess (not scientific) that most of the drop in complaints are because people realize they might be caught on camera and acting better or not lieing to try and get a lawsuit. I am certain there are some police that are acting better as there are bad apples, but I would guess the drop is probably 10%/90% with the 90% being the people changing behavior as opposed to the police office.
This does not track
If there's a 50% chance that encounters had a camera present, then -at most-, the public could have seen cameras and behaved better in half of the cases. This could not cause the 93% drop.
It is far more likely that police, being the only ones who definitely knew that recordings are happening (themselves, their partner, other officers on the scene) rose to the occasion and acted in a manner that led to less escalation and antagonism.
I think your guess at the 90/10 split is actually the re
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately, that trust is already gone. Maybe the better behaviour induced by these cameras will help restore some of it.
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The software is available and it does work.
In some environments, access to your servers might happen only from a jump box where everything is recorded.
This sucks when someone wants to fire you, and it's great when the people who implement it know humans make mistakes and want to be able to fix fuckups because we have visual records of changes.
Re:Funny thing is (Score:5, Funny)
Wanna blow a conservative's mind?
Most Police are Union members.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Want to blow a SJW's mind?
All the police departments with the BLM-related accusations and riots are run by Democrats, who also run the mayor's office, etc.. Most are also heavily black police forces, which is why it keeps being black cops being accused of racist behavior in some of these BLM "incidents".
The reason most police are union members is also related... their bosses love their union political contributors/supporters and the police are required to join in order to work in left-wing run cities.
Re: (Score:2)