Very few of us work at jobs where we are constantly surveilled. Even if you work in a heavily-surveilled business like a Walmart, there are places you can go where your activities won't be recorded.
If you have a job where you normally work without someone watching you constantly, you would likely be unnerved if someone decided to come in and look over your shoulder to see what you're doing every minute of the day.
One of the aspects of police work that is attractive to many cops is the autonomy. Most of the time, you work alone and make your own decisions. Drive down this street or that one, park in this lot, write the report now or later, get out and check the doors on a closed business, whatever, the cop has a great deal of freedom to decide what he will do from one minute to the next. He may be responsible to answer calls for service, but even then he is given considerable latitude to decide how to handle them.
Advocates of recording cops for every minute of their shifts don't consider the effect this would have on morale. The usual argument is that they will only care if they're being recorded if they're engaged in misconduct. Fewer than 1% of all cops ever engage in serious misconduct. The push to have every action recorded punishes the majority for the sins of a few.
Further, consider the effect on personal privacy. Have you ever had a personal conversation while at work? So have cops. Would you like to have a camera recording you while you changed into or out of your uniform? How about while you're using the bathroom?
Cops often use informants to get information on past crimes or those contemplated. In some circles, a cop is regarded as being only as good as his informants, and that crime suppression and investigation would be all but impossible without informants. The informants are very cautious about remaining anonymous, as being revealed could cost them their lives. How eager would an informant be to talk, knowing that their image and every word they speak is going onto a recording, one over which the officer will have no control?
Cops often get unnerved when someone is recording their actions on the street. This is becoming such a regular event that most cops are told to assume they are always being recorded, and most cops are getting more comfortable with it. What they are not comfortable with is when the person with the camera insists on crowding the officer, standing so close so as to ensure they get a good camera angle. The same people will often verbally harass and taunt the officer, hoping to get a reaction from him.
Cops are taught to maintain a safe distance, a reactionary gap, between them and citizens. It's a mistake to allow anyone to get close enough to you to grab your sidearm, and sooner or later, someone will try it. In a very few cases, the gun grabber succeeds in getting the gun and running away, making the cop look and feel silly. In most of those gun grab attempts, the cop keeps control of the gun, and the person trying to get it winds up getting shot. This happens often enough that cops remain ever vigilant to keep people from getting too close. Either way, you're going to be singled out if you get so close to interfere with the cop's actions, or when he has to divide his attention to keep track of you. Oh, it's your First Amendment right to record my actions on video? That right expires when you get within an arm's length of me. Back the hell up.
Maybe the cops shouldn't react to people yelling taunts and insults, but I submit that anyone will if they're exposed to it long enough. Imagine that, every time you got out of your car or left your work station, people started yelling "Hands up! Don't shoot!" at you. Every freaking time. I recently read an article about a black Ferguson PD sergeant who hasn't shot anyone in the 21 years he's been a member of the department, but he still gets this crap yelled at him every time he hits the street (Black and in blue: A Ferguson police sergeant reflects on a tough time : News). Further, all that yelling tends to draw a crowd, and then someone gets brave and tries to take a swipe at an officer, grab his sidearm, or rescue his prisoner. This is why the cops get upset when the yelling starts.
I don't think most cops have difficulty with a bodycam setup that records most police-citizen encounters. However, the cop has to be able to turn the recorder on and off at will. If a cop is found shutting off a recorder so as to engage in misconduct and not have a record of it, handle that individually. Implementing an "always" requirement when dealing with human interactions is "always" going to be a mistake.
Read other answers by Tim Dees on Quora:
- Is it possible to outthink law enforcement?
- What is the threshold of proof one must bring before Federal law enforcement takes action?
- What is the difference between low intensity conflict and law enforcement operations?
from Quora http://ift.tt/2eY3rnS
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