tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/police-videos-13887/articlesPolice videos – The Conversation2021-05-25T12:11:34Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1608462021-05-25T12:11:34Z2021-05-25T12:11:34ZBody cameras help monitor police but can invade people’s privacy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400380/original/file-20210512-24-vmvfml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=36%2C13%2C2975%2C2063&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Police see some difficult scenes; body cameras can record those and make them public.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/diversey/48968390892/">Tony Webster via Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the course of their work, police officers encounter people who are intoxicated, distressed, injured or abused. The officers routinely ask for key identifying information like addresses, dates of birth and driver’s license numbers, and they frequently enter people’s homes and other private spaces. </p>
<p>With the advent of police body cameras, this information is often captured in police video recordings – which some states’ open-records laws make available to the public. </p>
<p>Starting in the summer of 2014, as part of research on police adoption of body-worn cameras within two agencies in Washington state, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=7kICf7kAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">I</a> spent hours <a href="https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ilj/vol92/iss4/2">riding in patrol vehicles</a>, hanging out at police stations, <a href="https://scholarship.law.unc.edu/nclr/vol96/iss5/8">interviewing officers</a>, observing police officers while they worked and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444818786477">administering surveys</a>.</p>
<p>One of the most striking findings of my study was about the unintended effects of these cameras and associated laws. Body-worn cameras and freedom of information laws do enable oversight and accountability of the police. But, as I outline in my new book, “<a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520382909/police-visibility">Police Visibility: Privacy, Surveillance, and the False Promise of Body-Worn Cameras</a>,” they also hold the potential to force sensitive data and stressful episodes in private citizens’ lives into public view, easily accessible online.</p>
<h2>Accountability, with visibility</h2>
<p>Body-worn cameras have been issued to <a href="https://bja.ojp.gov/program/body-worn-cameras-bwcs/overview">police all over the United States</a>, with a patchwork of regulations and laws governing their operation and the video they record. The goal is often to make officers accountable for their actions, though <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-07-29/police-body-cameras-why-don-t-they-improve-accountability">their effectiveness at doing so has been questioned</a>. </p>
<p>Opinions and laws also differ on <a href="https://theconversation.com/police-and-civilians-disagree-on-when-body-camera-footage-should-be-made-public-157111">when body camera footage should be made public</a>. And, even when it is, interpreting what the footage depicts <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-rodney-king-to-george-floyd-how-video-evidence-can-be-differently-interpreted-in-courts-159794">can be complicated</a>. Nevertheless, the cameras have the potential to make police work, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/12/us/brooklyn-center-police-shooting-minnesota.html">including misconduct and police violence</a>, more visible.</p>
<p>I found that within weeks of adopting body-worn cameras, the police agencies I studied began receiving requests under local and state public records laws, seeking all of the footage recorded. In response, the departments began to release the videos, under the provisions of <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/research/civil-and-criminal-justice/body-worn-cameras-interactive-graphic.aspx">state public records laws</a> with few – if any – redactions to protect citizens’ sensitive personal information. The primary instigator of these initial requests <a href="https://www.wired.com/2015/05/the-body-cam-hacker-who-schooled-the-police/">posted the disclosed video to a publicly accessible YouTube channel</a>.</p>
<p>One patrol officer told me, “I personally would never provide my personal information to an officer with a camera. It all ends up on the internet. That is wrong and unsafe.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400591/original/file-20210513-20-6vorg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman gestures in a bedroom" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400591/original/file-20210513-20-6vorg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400591/original/file-20210513-20-6vorg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400591/original/file-20210513-20-6vorg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400591/original/file-20210513-20-6vorg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400591/original/file-20210513-20-6vorg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400591/original/file-20210513-20-6vorg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400591/original/file-20210513-20-6vorg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An image from body-worn camera footage recorded during a prostitution sting in Bellingham, Wash., which later appeared on YouTube.com. The young woman’s face is obscured in this image to help preserve her privacy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bryce Newell</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Say hi to the camera, honey!’</h2>
<p>One winter afternoon in 2015, I accompanied a Spokane, Washington police officer on a domestic violence call. After parking by the curb, we walked up the driveway to where a man was standing. </p>
<p>The officer I was shadowing turned on his body camera and informed the man that he had activated his camera and would be recording their conversation. </p>
<p>The man we had approached yelled down the driveway to his wife, “Smile and say hi to the camera, honey!” </p>
<p>The woman had allegedly taken a metal baseball bat and smashed in the man’s face across his eye. He had blood leaking from his eye and eyebrow and rolling down his nose and cheek. His eyebrow looked caved in; the bone was obviously broken. After a few minutes of questioning, the medics arrived and quickly rushed him to the ambulance. </p>
<p>The officer and I followed them to the ambulance, where the officer continued to question the injured man, seeking to get a statement or confession out of him on camera. His body camera continued to record everything in front of the officer, including the man and the inside of the ambulance.</p>
<p>When the ambulance left, we entered the home, where the woman was being questioned. The officer continued to record in case the woman might offer her own statement or confession.</p>
<p>Although much of what was recorded on the officer’s camera in this case occurred outside, within view of neighbors and others present on the street, it still was a traumatic, personal and embarrassing moment in the lives of both victim and alleged offender. </p>
<p>But the fact that a camera recorded it made these events much more visible, to a wider audience, for a longer time. Officers sometimes showed each other videos at the end of their shifts while writing reports, often to simply decompress after a long shift or bond with their colleagues. In addition, the footage could potentially become public under state open records laws at the time it was recorded.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400593/original/file-20210513-21-tagp7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three images, one with a man with his arms spread wide, then the man running away, then a police officer with a Taser pointed at the man" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400593/original/file-20210513-21-tagp7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400593/original/file-20210513-21-tagp7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=146&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400593/original/file-20210513-21-tagp7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=146&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400593/original/file-20210513-21-tagp7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=146&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400593/original/file-20210513-21-tagp7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=184&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400593/original/file-20210513-21-tagp7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=184&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400593/original/file-20210513-21-tagp7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=184&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">These screen captures are from a body-worn camera video recorded during a police contact and foot chase in Bellingham, Wash. Faces have been obscured.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bryce Newell</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Maybe I should stop drinking’</h2>
<p>On another winter evening, I found myself standing inside another couple’s living room with two officers as the man and woman, separately, tried to explain why the wife had called 911 and accused the husband of threatening violence. </p>
<p>The husband was drunk – and drinking continuously while talking to the officer, who was wearing a camera on his chest. He told a rambling story about how much trouble his wife had caused him over the years, musing that perhaps he should leave her and move on, but perhaps he loves her. On the other hand, he said, she had caused him nothing but grief and made his life miserable. Moments later, he continued, “Maybe what I really should do is stop drinking,” and he took another sip from his beer can.</p>
<p>Even if he had been sober, he probably would not have realized that this conversation might end up on YouTube with virtually unlimited visibility. If he had, would he or his wife have let the police into their house in the first place? Would the wife even have called to report her husband’s threats? </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400594/original/file-20210513-20-1ro1s3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A police officer gives a field sobriety test to a person" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400594/original/file-20210513-20-1ro1s3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400594/original/file-20210513-20-1ro1s3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400594/original/file-20210513-20-1ro1s3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400594/original/file-20210513-20-1ro1s3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400594/original/file-20210513-20-1ro1s3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400594/original/file-20210513-20-1ro1s3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400594/original/file-20210513-20-1ro1s3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This image is from body-worn camera footage of a field sobriety test in Bellingham, Wash., which later appeared on YouTube.com.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bryce Newell</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are potential social costs to deploying body-worn cameras, including possible invasions of privacy when sensitive moments are recorded or made public, and increasing police surveillance of communities already subjected to heightened police attention. When body cameras are introduced, careful attention to existing laws and policies, including public records laws, can help minimize harm to the public while increasing the transparency of police work. </p>
<p>As I discuss in <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520382909/police-visibility">my book</a>, one possible solution could be redacting personal information about victims, witnesses, bystanders and even suspects, as long as it is not related to law enforcement officer conduct. Other options include creating independent oversight groups to review footage before its release, giving victims and their families access to footage, and erring on the side of nondisclosure when body cameras record in private spaces or in particularly sensitive contexts. </p>
<p>I believe these are possible without limiting public access to procedural information about how officers conduct their activities, to enable oversight and accountability. </p>
<p>Just as <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-cellphone-videos-of-black-peoples-deaths-should-be-considered-sacred-like-lynching-photographs-139252">videos of Black people’s deaths at the hands of the police should be treated with more care</a>, the decision to make police video that captures sensitive and traumatic moments of people’s lives public should be a measured and considered one. In my view, there is little need to force civilians onto the public stage simply because they are contacted by a police officer.</p>
<p>[<em>The Conversation’s Politics + Society editors pick need-to-know stories.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/politics-weekly-74/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=politics-need-to-know">Sign up for Politics Weekly</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160846/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bryce C. Newell received funding for some parts of this research from the University of Washington's Information School and the Dutch Research Council (NWO). </span></em></p>Police body cameras have the potential to make private details about people’s lives, including some of the most stressful experiences of their lives, public and easily accessible onlineBryce C. Newell, Assistant Professor of Media Law and Policy, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1400452020-06-10T17:16:43Z2020-06-10T17:16:43ZWhat it takes to record a Black person’s death<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340358/original/file-20200608-176560-7mk33e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=274%2C26%2C4068%2C2884&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Malaysia Hammond, 19, places flowers at a memorial mural for George Floyd at the corner of Chicago Avenue and 38th Street on May 31, 2020, in Minneapolis. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(John Minchillo/AP Photo)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On July 17, 2014, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/16/nyregion/eric-garner-case-death-daniel-pantaleo.html">Eric Garner’s murder by NYPD officers</a> was captured by Ramsey Orta on his mobile phone camera. Choked, handcuffed and pinned face down to the ground, Garner’s repeated calls for help, encapsulated by the phrase “I can’t breathe,” were ignored by the arresting officers.</p>
<p>Nearly six years later, the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police Department officers was recorded by Darnella Frazier, a young Black woman who captured the final moments of Floyd’s life on her mobile phone. Her video shows Floyd handcuffed with his head pinned underneath the knee of a police officer, repeatedly yelling, “I can’t breathe.”</p>
<p>Like Orta’s video, the footage that Frazier uploaded to Facebook has since gone viral. Used by many media outlets, Frazier’s video has led to <a href="https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/dc-george-floyd-protest/2316832/">public outrage and ongoing mass protests</a>. It also assisted in the decision to fire the four arresting police officers, and <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/06/03/george-floyd-death-charges-derek-chauvin-police/3134766001/">to subsequently charge</a> one with second-degree murder and the other three with aiding and abetting.</p>
<h2>Bearing direct and indirect witness to trauma</h2>
<p>Often forgotten in these far too common acts of police violence and fatal police-civilian encounters, involving unarmed Black people, is the dangerous, emotional and traumatic labour of bearing witness. </p>
<p>Following Garner’s death, <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/13/18253848/eric-garner-footage-ramsey-orta-police-brutality-killing-safety">Orta’s life took a drastic turn for the worse</a>. From 2014 to 2016, Orta was arrested three times for a series of charges, which activists maintain stem from <a href="http://amsterdamnews.com/news/2020/apr/23/ramsey-orta-transferred-prison-infirmary-due-sickn/?page=2">retaliatory set-ups by the NYPD for filming the video</a>. Despite providing the footage that served as the <a href="http://amsterdamnews.com/news/2020/apr/23/ramsey-orta-transferred-prison-infirmary-due-sickn/?page=2">catalyst for the “I can’t breathe” slogan and movement</a>, Orta remains incarcerated to this day.</p>
<p>The day after Floyd’s death, Frazier returned to the scene of the killing, crying and emotionally distraught. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXKMih20Ur0&has_verified=1&bpctr=1591295910">In a video</a> that has been viewed nearly 2.5 million times, Frazier pleads, “They killed this man. And I was right there! I was like five feet away! It is so traumatizing.” </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GXKMih20Ur0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Darnella Frazier, who recorded the death of George Floyd, describes the trauma of doing so.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If the emotional and traumatic consequences of bearing witness to Floyd’s killing were not enough, Frazier has also encountered online harassment for recording and posting the video. In the comments section of the video Frazier uploaded to Facebook, some have <a href="https://www.kansascity.com/news/nation-world/national/article243063836.html">chastised her for recording the footage without intervening</a>. Frazier comes to her own defence, writing: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I don’t expect anyone who wasn’t placed in my position to understand why and how I feel the way that I do. MIND YOU I am a minor! 17 years old, of course I’m not about to fight off a cop.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Attempts to diminish the profound effects of bearing witness to traumatic events aim to dismiss the notion of shared trauma. As literary critic Shoshana Felman and psychoanalyst Dori Laub argue, the listener or, in this case, the viewer, becomes “<a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203700327">a participant and co-owner of the traumatic event</a>.” In this sense, viewing the deaths of Garner and Floyd behind a screen can be different but equally traumatic experiences for both the person recording and for the viewer. </p>
<h2>The effects of bearing witness</h2>
<p>Viewing race-based trauma can be particularly traumatic for Black people for whom police violence is a <a href="https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2019-08-15/police-shootings-are-a-leading-cause-of-death-for-black-men">leading cause of death</a>. This realization is intensified by the danger that the mere <a href="https://global.oup.com/ushe/product/a-space-for-race-9780190858919?cc=us&lang=en&">occupation of public space</a> poses for Black lives. </p>
<p>In part, this stems from a refusal on behalf of white folks to recognize the <a href="https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/policing-black-lives">extensive history of race-based policing in both the United States and in Canada</a>. There is also a pressing need for white people to understand that <a href="https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/06/05/news/calls-defund-police-grow-torontos-mayor-not-buying">policing itself is a form of harm</a>, especially for people of colour. As writer and activist Desmond Cole reminds us, police violence committed against Black people is too often treated as a “<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-june-1-2020-1.5592953/police-brutality-continually-treated-like-a-one-off-in-canada-says-desmond-cole-1.5592954">one off</a>.”</p>
<p>Some suggest that using mobile phone cameras to watch the police is a means of “<a href="https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/article/view/292">prevent[ing] police violence from being used against other community members or oneself</a>.” But given that <a href="https://theconversation.com/police-kill-about-3-men-per-day-in-the-us-according-to-new-study-100567">Black men are far more likely to be killed by police than white men</a>, bearing witness on camera as a form of cop-watching has not prevented further police violence from occurring. Instead, bearing witness involves race-based trauma that attempts to hold police accountable for the pain they have long inflicted against Black people and communities. </p>
<p>As writer Kia Gregory says, acts of police violence and deadly police-civilian encounters “<a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/153103/videos-police-brutality-traumatize-african-americans-undermine-search-justice">are so pervasive, they inflict a unique harm on viewers, particularly African Americans, who see themselves and those they love in these fatal encounters</a>.” </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340348/original/file-20200608-176542-1s94iko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340348/original/file-20200608-176542-1s94iko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340348/original/file-20200608-176542-1s94iko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340348/original/file-20200608-176542-1s94iko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340348/original/file-20200608-176542-1s94iko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340348/original/file-20200608-176542-1s94iko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340348/original/file-20200608-176542-1s94iko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A young boy holds a sign during a vigil demanding justice for Eric Garner.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(John Minchillo/AP)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The trauma of bearing witness extends from the person experiencing, recording or witnessing violent or fatal police encounters, to those who subsequently view and witness the recording through a digital medium, and most often <a href="http://eyewitnessmediahub.com/research/vicarious-trauma">through social media platforms</a>. Viewing such videos can induce <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.amepre.2014.09.013">stress, fear, frustration, anger and anxiety</a>. There is medical evidence to suggest that viewing footage of race-based trauma can lead to a physical ailments, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12251">including eating and sleeping disorders, high blood pressure and heart problems</a>. </p>
<p>Bearing witness to these acts of deadly police violence can be traumatizing for anyone. Keenly aware of the mental health toll that police violence and race-based trauma can take, a GoFundMe campaign has raised <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/f/peace-and-healing-for-darnella">nearly US$500,000 for Darnella Frazier’s “peace and healing.”</a> </p>
<p>For Black folks, in particular, the terrifying and everyday reality that they encounter at the hands of police is a trauma that endures long after the initial act of witnessing has occurred. It is a trauma that is relived and re-experienced not only in person but behind the screen.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140045/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Constantine Gidaris receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p>Recording and bearing witness to a Black person’s death from police violence is in itself traumatizing.Constantine Gidaris, PhD Candidate, English and Cultural Studies, McMaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/974182018-06-04T13:49:48Z2018-06-04T13:49:48ZHow CCTV surveillance poses a threat to privacy in South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220930/original/file-20180530-120505-j9xs87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">CCTV cameras are becoming a “normal” feature of public life, tracking peoples’ movements as a matter of course.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Locational privacy is a fairly new and novel aspect of privacy rights. It refers to the right of people to move about freely, without having their movements tracked. </p>
<p>But as CCTV cameras become more widespread in public spaces for use in a range of functions such as crime-fighting, it’s becoming more difficult for people to protect this kind of privacy in public spaces.</p>
<p>The cameras, linked to a display monitors, can be used to monitor human movements in particular spaces, including streets and shopping centres. A video recorder can also be added to record activities. But, the problem with CCTV is always the human capacity to process the information gleaned from the cameras. The cameras can only film fixed areas. Unless they are ubiquitous, they cannot be used to track movements.</p>
<p>The need for human monitoring places a natural limit on the analysis of camera footage. But, with digital tools of analysis, this is changing. When linked to a computer loaded with software capable of algorithmic analysis, huge amounts of footage can be analysed. These camera based surveillance systems can capture information about a person’s physical location. Some may only provide real time information, while others may record information for further analysis.</p>
<p>But governments of a more authoritarian bent can misuse this information to establish people’s movements, political activities and associations. People may not participate as robustly in democratic life as they would if they feel that they are being watched, and their movements tracked.</p>
<p>Invasive forms of data analysis such as number plate and facial recognition are being introduced in South African cities without any public debate about the implications for privacy in public spaces. Likewise, there’s no debate about about their implications for the ability of citizens to practice a range of rights in these spaces, such as the right to assemble.</p>
<h2>Ubiquity</h2>
<p>Increasingly, CCTV cameras are becoming a “normal” feature of public life, tracking peoples’ movements as a matter of course. Video analysis tools also allow for more sophisticated analyses of footage. </p>
<p>Computer analysis enables CCTV to be turned into “smart dataveillance” devices (that conduct surveillance through the collection and computerised analysis of data), which make individuals and their movements more visible to the state. These are meant to assist in “smart” policing, whereby police use data tools to enhance the effectiveness of policing.</p>
<p>Another example is facial recognition technologies. These can be used to identify a particular person from a facial database. Potentially, these technologies can, and are, being used to identify people engaging in politically activities, such as protests. This triggers concerns that governments may be tempted to use them for anti-democratic purposes. </p>
<p>South Africa has followed international trends in street-level surveillance and embraced technologies whose affect on crime fighting and intelligence work are, at best, unclear and contested. International academic <a href="https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9780203814949.ch3_2_c">research</a> points to CCTV systems being most effective in specific contexts, such as parking lots, and least effective in open spaces.</p>
<p>Other kinds of crime such as white collar crime and domestic crime, are not recorded by street cameras, which perpetuates an ideology of crime being street crime perpetrated by strangers. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.routledge.com/Eyes-Everywhere-The-Global-Growth-of-Camera-Surveillance/Doyle-Lippert-Lyon/p/book/9780415696555">Critics</a> have also blamed the use of CCTV systems for displacing crime, rather than deterring it. Where reductions in crime levels have taken place because of CCTV, they were localised and often not statistically significant.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220939/original/file-20180530-120487-1yxlckl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220939/original/file-20180530-120487-1yxlckl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220939/original/file-20180530-120487-1yxlckl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220939/original/file-20180530-120487-1yxlckl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220939/original/file-20180530-120487-1yxlckl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220939/original/file-20180530-120487-1yxlckl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220939/original/file-20180530-120487-1yxlckl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A security officers monitoring activity captured on CCTV.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>The difficulties of assessing the impacts of CCTV on crime is made harder by the fact that local authorities have not been undertaking independent impact assessments (including on privacy). This means that the public is forced to rely on the state’s version of events, which for public relations purposes, emphasises the positive impacts. Yet, in Cape Town in 2015 for instance, the police were criticised for making only 107 arrests following 2640 criminal incidents <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/technology/111529/sa-police-not-using-cctv-footage-to-catch-criminals-da/">caught on camera</a>.</p>
<p>In 2016, the City of Johannesburg <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2016/06/26/City-of-JHB-installs-smart-cameras-around-city">announced</a> that it was rolling out smart CCTV cameras complete, with automatic number plate and facial recognition technologies, as part of its <a href="http://www.gautengfilm.org.za/news/news-archive/2008/december-2008/360-making-the-inner-city-safer-a-city-of-joburg-initiative">‘safe cities’ initiative</a>. </p>
<p>Yet at the time of writing, the City had enacted no requirement for signage at the entrance to an area under CCTV surveillance – a key privacy protection requirement. The City was in the process of finalising a policy on the roll-out of CCTVs, coupled with a master plan, but these were still at draft stage, pointing to the fact that the technology had run ahead of the policy.</p>
<p>CCTV rollouts tend to <a href="http://www.saflii.org/khayelitshacommissionreport.pdf">“follow the money”</a>. In other words, they tend to follow patterns of wealth in the major metropolitan cities in South Africa. This contributes to the <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/lifestyle/209473/joburg-is-looking-at-making-big-changes-to-boomed-suburbs/">enclosure of city spaces</a> by private capital, and consequently to the privatisation of public spaces and the reproduction of <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0269094215618595">spacial inequalities</a>.</p>
<p>It’s not at all clear if the growing capacity of local governments to collect street-level data on peoples’ movements is making a substantial contribution to policing, as the police do not use this data routinely.</p>
<h2>The risk of dumbing down policing</h2>
<p>Technology is being used as a silver bullet for policing of public spaces, when more basic interventions may be more appropriate (such as improving investigative techniques), risks dumbing down policing. Yet, at the same time, the regulation of CCTV for its impacts on privacy is lagging behind the actual rollout of the technology.</p>
<p>Data-driven surveillance tools, such as smart CCTV, consistently over promise but under deliver in fighting crime. Yet, governments are adept at creating panic about crime to obscure these failings. People’s fear of crime, and their need to feel protected from it, should not stop them from asking the critical questions that need to be asked. </p>
<p><em>This is an edited excerpt from the author’s latest book, <a href="https://witspress.co.za/catalogue/stopping-the-spies/">Stopping the Spies: Constructing and Resisting the Surveillance State</a>, published by Wits University Press.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97418/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jane Duncan receives funding from the Open Society Foundation for South Africa. She is affiliated with the Media Policy and Democracy Project and the Right 2 Know Campaign. </span></em></p>As CCTV cameras become more widespread, it’s becoming more difficult for people to protect their locational privacy in public.Jane Duncan, Professor and head of the Department of Journalism, Film and Television, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/659342016-09-23T21:06:43Z2016-09-23T21:06:43ZHow the Jim Crow internet is pushing back against Black Lives Matter<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139038/original/image-20160923-29902-cvncmr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A still image captured from a video from the Tulsa Police Department shows Terence Crutcher with his hands in the air. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tulsa Police Department Handout via REUTERS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Police killings of African-Americans on social media have become the visual hallmark of our time. This decade will be recalled through blurry cellphone and dash-cam videos of shootings. But how will it be remembered?</p>
<p>From my scholarship on <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/196428/how-to-see-the-world/">visual culture</a>, most recently on the visual tactics of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/03/opinion/what-protest-looks-like.html?_r=2">political protest</a>, it is clear that this marks a transition that I call the rise of the Jim Crow internet. It’s not all of the internet, of course, but a self-referential, wide-ranging and increasingly influential slice of it, from <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/">Breitbart</a> to <a href="http://bluelivesmatter.blue/">Blue Lives Matter</a> and all over Twitter.</p>
<p>Visible on cable TV, Google searches, Twitter and other social media, the Jim Crow internet is challenging the way race in general and police violence in particular are understood, pushing back against the gains made by Black Lives Matter.</p>
<p>Who wins this struggle over cultural and political meaning may determine our political future.</p>
<h2>Cameras don’t stop violence</h2>
<p>Because there is a political and cultural divide as to how we see and what we make of it, cameras in themselves solve nothing. </p>
<p>Terence Crutcher, 40, was shot in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Sept. 19. In the official account, Police Officer Betty Shelby describes getting scared when he <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/21/us/man-killed-by-tulsa-police-posed-no-threat-his-family-says.html?partner=rss&emc=rss">“locks his eyes on her.”</a> Under Jim Crow, the allegation of “reckless eyeballing” meant any look from a black person at a white person, especially a woman. It was used <a href="https://wp.nyu.edu/howtoseetheworld/2015/05/30/auto-draft-46/">to justify deadly force</a>. </p>
<p>Looking a police officer in the eye also got <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/the-brutality-of-police-culture-in-baltimore/391158/">Freddie Gray</a> into trouble in Baltimore, leading to his still unexplained death in a police van. </p>
<p>The dash-cam video in Crutcher’s case suggests that the windows of his car were closed. The indicted shooter claims they were open, causing her to fear that he was reaching for a weapon. Her case depends on how we interpret what she thought she saw, against what the video shows. </p>
<h2>Video is just data</h2>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">ABC News reports on the Rodney King beating, 1991.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Lawyers representing police officers have learned how to handle video footage to exploit these different interpretations and present their clients in the best possible light.</p>
<p>In the 1992 trial of Rodney King, accused of abusing drugs as Crutcher has been, defense lawyers <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1992-05-18/local/me-15_1_real-time">slowed down the video</a> of his beating to make it seem as if he was responsible. More recently, when Tamir Rice was killed in Cleveland, prosecutors <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/22/us/24cleveland-tamir-shooting-listy.html">edited the few seconds of video</a> into hundreds of stills to make his movements seem more dramatic than they appeared when played at normal speed, as if he was reaching for a gun.</p>
<p>Video is data, not truth. It can be presented in any number of ways.</p>
<p>The second case of police shooting demanding attention this week is that of Keith Scott in Charlotte, North Carolina. A dash-cam video exists but the police are not releasing it. Police Chief Kerr Putney <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/23/us/charlotte-protests-keith-scott.html?ribbon-ad-idx=2&rref=us&module=Ribbon&version=context&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=U.S.&pgtype=article">admits</a>
“the video does not give me absolute, definitive, visual evidence that would confirm that a person is pointing a gun.” He nonetheless claims that witness accounts and physical evidence will do so. Putney’s statements seem to imply that video only counts when it shows what you want it to show. </p>
<p>The cumulative effect of over 25 years of official skepticism of video evidence since the Rodney King case is to undermine what is seen in favor of what is said by police and other people in power.</p>
<h2>The Jim Crow internet</h2>
<p>Online, images originally circulated as evidence of police brutality are seen by others as depictions of African-American violence and pathology. In short, the internet has created its own form of the <a href="http://newjimcrow.com/">New Jim Crow</a>, to adapt the phrase coined by writer Michele Alexander.</p>
<p>This section of the internet has created its own meanings for the notorious videos of police violence. The third result on Google for “Alton Sterling video” sends you to the website Blue Lives Matter. It claims to “vindicate cops” in the <a href="http://bluelivesmatter.blue/second-alton-sterling-video-vindicates-cops/">shooting</a>.</p>
<p>Character demolition goes hand-in-hand with this new video analysis. Conspiracy theorist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Dice">Mark Dice</a> appears close to the top of Google searches for Keith Scott. Presented as a “media analyst,” he <a href="http://truthfeed.com/video-the-truth-behind-keith-scott-and-the-charlotte-riots/25136/">denounced</a> the “black thugs who are rioting over this black thug.” </p>
<p>Terence Crutcher is being accused online <a href="https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/264259/was-terence-crutcher-pcp-daniel-greenfield">of using drugs</a> when he was shot. The “evidence” is a previous conviction and an unconfirmed allegation of drugs found in his vehicle. A frame-by-frame <a href="http://bearingarms.com/bob-o/2016/09/20/terence-crutcher-shot-hands-heres-definitive-proof/">breakdown of the helicopter video of Crutcher</a> claims to demonstrate that he was not shot with his hands up. Less than three seconds of video are broken into seven stills that appear to support the idea that he’s reaching for a gun. But the moment of the shooting itself was not recorded, so we do not know exactly where his hands were the instant he was shot.</p>
<h2>The Jim Crow internet is now viral</h2>
<p>The paranoid patterns of association used by the extreme right online are entering the mainstream. Yesterday, Rep. Tim Huelskamp, Republican of Kansas, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/23/us/politics/congress-recess-paul-ryan-democrats-huelskamp.html?ref=politics&_r=0">called</a> North Carolina protesters “hoodlums” on Twitter. On the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PW6t3gk3xqs&list=PLJxnQXiytA_Qc0B57aViue2G3DPet1Z0L&index=2&ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbcnewsnight&ns_source=facebook">BBC</a>, Rep. Robert Pittenger, Republican of North Carolina, claimed “they hate white people because white people are successful and they’re not.”</p>
<p>When Hillary Clinton tweeted that the the shooting was “unbearable,” CNN at once gave a platform to the race-baiting ex-NYPD cop <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/07/12/meet-harry-houck-cnn-s-resident-race-baiter-and-police-brutality-apologist/211509">Harry Houck</a>, who denounced Clinton on Twitter for “playing [the] race card for black votes.” <a href="https://twitter.com/harryjhouck/status/778357896748863488">This tweet</a> garnered a mere four likes and four retweets and yet was covered on a supposedly respectable news channel.</p>
<p>Some media corporations are only too happy to host this kind of analysis, despite the <a href="http://www.altright.com/2016/09/22/the-alt-right-has-been-vindicated/">alt-right calling them</a> #LyingPress and worse. The Trump campaign is led by Stephen Bannon, an executive from Breibart News, who <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/08/stephen-bannon-donald-trump-alt-right-breitbart-news">describes</a> it as “the platform for the alt-right.” </p>
<p>While the media concentrate on Monday’s ceremonial presidential debate, it’s this online debate that will in the end matter most.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65934/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicholas D. Mirzoeff does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A scholar of visual culture sees a transition happening online as the alt-right reinterprets images of police shootings to push back against the gains made by Black Lives Matter.Nicholas D. Mirzoeff, Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication, New York UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/613362016-07-06T01:05:10Z2016-07-06T01:05:10ZHow video can help police – and the public<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129022/original/image-20160701-18337-maby88.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The police accountability, or cop-watching, movement includes activists who go out on regular patrols to videotape arrests.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mary Angela Bock</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>With <a href="http://blogs.forrester.com/ted_schadler/16-01-05-three_billion_smartphone_customers_are_ready_now_go_make_them_successful">three billion camera-equipped cellphones in circulation</a>, we are awash in visual information. Cameras are lighter, smaller and cheaper than ever and they’re everywhere, making it possible for nearly anyone to watch, create, share and video.</p>
<p>One of the most dramatic ways camera proliferation is changing our lives is in the area of law enforcement. Dashcams have been around for years and are <a href="http://www.mobilecomputingtoday.co.uk/2796/global-dashcams-market-reach-5530-0-2022-credence-research/">increasingly popular</a>. President Obama called for local departments to <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-police-cameras-idUSKBN0NM3PL20150501">start equipping officers</a> with badge cams. Citizens, too, have cameras, usually in their smartphones, but <a href="http://lifehacker.com/will-a-dash-cam-actually-help-you-after-a-car-accident-1732054157">increasingly on their own dashboards</a>. Yet even with all this footage, we are often in the dark about what really happens during police encounters.</p>
<p>For the past three years I’ve been studying the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12204">police accountability movement</a> and the role that video has played in fueling activism by citizens concerned about criminal justice policies in their communities. “Cop-watching,” as it’s known informally, cannot be understood without also studying the way the law enforcement community uses video. As a result, my work has taken me to courtrooms, police stations and city streets where citizens and police are watching each other through their camera lenses.</p>
<h2>Multiple perspectives, one timeline</h2>
<p>A recent research project I conducted with my husband, David Alan Schneider, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2016.1168474">showed how this worked in a courtroom</a>. We examined the way video evidence played out in a criminal courtroom. On January 1, 2012, as a woman under arrest by Austin, Texas, police called for help, an Iraq War veteran turned activist, Antonio Buehler, pulled his phone out to photograph the scene. He ended up getting arrested himself, and <a href="http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news/right-to-film-officers-at-heart-of-activist-antoni/nhrZm/#0091bc94.3708363.735531">put on trial for allegedly interfering with police work</a>.</p>
<p>The jury watched three videos and listened to multiple versions of what happened that night: police alleged that Buehler lunged at them menacingly; he argued that he was the one assaulted. Another bystander, across the street, had filmed the scene, too, showing officers throwing Buehler to the ground. Police dashcam video showed part of the start of the woman’s drunk-driving arrest and included some of the audio. A surveillance camera from the nearby convenience store bore silent witness and showed where Buehler’s car was in relation to the rest of the action.</p>
<p>Three videos, three narratives, but time passes along only one line. By incorporating the other evidence into what they saw, and tying everything to that one timeline, the jury came up with yet another, constructed narrative, <a href="http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2014-10-31/buehler-acquitted/">acquitting Buehler</a>.</p>
<p>The famous <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/lapd/race/king.html">Rodney King case</a> in 1991 that acquitted four officers and sparked riots in Los Angeles shows just how important the timeline is to our ideas of reality and truth. When the video is played in real time, the scene is devastating; officers are seen swarming the truck driver and striking him swiftly and repeatedly. </p>
<p>But defense attorneys for the officers never played the video straight through; instead they stopped and started it second by second. With the images taken out of context and isolated from the timeline, the moments shown seemed more defensible. The jury, left with competing narratives and a set of images detached from the timeline, found in favor of the officers.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The full video of the Rodney King beating.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Documenting police work</h2>
<p>Video’s combination of timeline with visual information has significant implications for the current debate about badge-cams, dash-cams and cop-watching. When it comes to really figuring out what happened, more cameras are helpful; multiple perspectives tied to the timeline present a narrative that better mimics the way we move through the world. We don’t stand in one place, like a surveillance camera, nor do we hold our focus on one spot. We look close, we scan and move. For the sake of really understanding an event, the more video, the better.</p>
<p>From a public policy perspective, this is expensive and complicated. Much depends on who controls the cameras and the resulting videos. Dashcams only show what was in front of the car. Like most of the video from the drunk-driving arrest in Buehler’s case, the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/20/us/sandra-bland-arrest-death-videos-maps.html">confrontation between Sandra Bland and a Texas police officer</a> happened outside the camera’s range. Badge-cams can show what was in front of an officer, but they come with a long list of other considerations: <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/police-body-camera-policies-privacy-and-first-amendment-protections">privacy for certain kinds of crime victims</a> and the officers themselves; protocols for <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/police-body-camera-policies-recording-circumstances">when and how to turn them on</a> and off; <a href="http://time.com/4180889/police-body-cameras-vievu-taser/">storage and distribution procedures</a> for the millions of hours of video they will eventually collect.</p>
<p>Citizen videos have provided some of the most dramatic and troubling evidence of police misconduct, but by nature are happenstance and the result of being on location at a particular moment. Based on my own research, it’s clear that <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12204">cop-watching video only captures events of note</a> once in a while; their work is most effective as a preventative. This “<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/MCE.2015.2393006">sousveillance</a>” movement is conceived as a way for the public to monitor and keep a check on power, serving as a sort of democratized fourth estate.</p>
<h2>Do cameras lie?</h2>
<p>My interest in video has grown out of my first career as a TV journalist and a lifelong interest in how photography conveys reality, which is not nearly as simple as it seems. True, cameras perfectly capture the light waves from a scene in front of them in ways that we could never duplicate by drawing or painting. Cameras can provide extraordinary evidence, which is why police and crime scene investigators document everything, why journalists use cameras as documentary tools, and why citizen journalists are able to gain credibility for their own investigations.</p>
<p>Yet anyone who’s ever looked at photos someone else took of them at the party last weekend and thought to themselves “I don’t look like that!” can relate to the way a camera distorts and flattens a scene. There’s much more, though: Consider the way photographers work, using their own bodies to capture a particular perspective, with lenses that do what our eyes cannot, framing a scene in a way that captures certain elements but not others. Those are just some of the decisions that happen before the darkroom or Photoshop stage, when images are <a href="https://nppa.org/page/5127">cropped, enhanced and sometimes distorted</a> in misleading ways.</p>
<p>Then there are the ways our brains mislead us, because images work differently in our heads than language does. Pictures seem to take a faster highway, metaphorically speaking, <a href="http://www.sunypress.edu/p-2603-visual-intelligence.aspx">inspiring emotional responses faster than language</a> and its logical reasoning. They seem to <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/R/bo3637820.html">work in our memories differently than words</a> do. Add to this the way photographic images feel real, and it becomes easier to understand why <a href="http://hdl.handle.net/2152/30317">images can be very convincing even when we know we’re being manipulated</a> by special effects in a movie or an ad that shows a cupcake that’s simply too perfect to be true – but now we’re hungry.</p>
<p>Video offers up its own set of real and unreal characteristics. We’ve all seen the way editing can change the nature of a soundbite or a TV story; the <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2015/07/21/the_center_for_medical_releases_a_second_attack_video_on_planned_parenthood.html">now-discredited attack video about Planned Parenthood</a> is a perfect example of how scenes can be deliberately distorted. Yet unedited, raw video, while subject to all the limitations of cameras generally, usually adds not just images but also audio to the timeline. Still images offer up a form of visual reality. Raw, unedited video shows us what happened in what order – and that means it provides its own version of a story.</p>
<p>Un-edited, raw video is a “triple threat” for public safety. It has the visual presence of photography; the power of language in its audio; and the ultimate, unyielding evidence offered by the timeline. The public must demand transparency and input for the way police and any other branch of government creates, stores and distributes it. The public must exercise its right to video police and other public servants working in public spaces. Cameras may not lie, but people do all the time. While it’s not infallible, video offers an invaluable way to find the truth.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: an earlier version of this article mistakenly identified Antonio Buehler as a veteran of the war in Afghanistan. Buehler served in Iraq.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61336/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mary Angela Bock receives funding from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication organisation and has received past support from the Dechert Foundation. She is affiliated with the National Press Photographers Association.</span></em></p>With citizens filming police, and police recording public encounters, the key to the truth is establishing a clear timeline of events.Mary Angela Bock, Assistant Professor of Journalism, The University of Texas at AustinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/356442014-12-23T10:44:49Z2014-12-23T10:44:49ZCameras on cops: the jury’s still out<p>The mere presence or absence of a camera does not deter violent behavior. We know this through decades of research on CCTV demonstrating that video monitoring has little to no effect on violent crime and modest effects on other <a href="http://www.campbellcollaboration.org/news_/CCTV_modest_impact_on_crime.php">types of crime</a>. We also know this from our own observations of city-centers at the weekend: innumerable cameras, plenty of violence.</p>
<p>So if cameras don’t deter violence by the public, why would we expect that passively monitoring police-citizen encounters will cause behavior change? CCTV tells us part of this story, but dashboard mounted cameras, already widely used by police forces, and smart-phone films of police by members of the public, are much more informative. </p>
<p>The most salient example is the Eric Garner homicide. A bystander filmed the whole episode but this did not stop the events that led to his untimely and tragic death. There is also the recent example of a South Carolina state trooper who opened fire on an unarmed man at a gas station following a seat-belt law violation. The whole encounter was filmed on a police dashboard camera, but did not prevent the <a href="http://www.wltx.com/story/news/local/2014/09/24/video-released-released-of-trooper-involved-shooting/16187305">shooting</a> (Thankfully for the man involved the officer was a terrible shot. One also has to wonder about the wisdom of opening fire in a gas station.) </p>
<p>Some have argued that Eric Garner’s death effectively sank any suggestion that police cameras should be used more widely. But other cases –- notably the death of Missouri teenager Michael Brown –- lead us to ask: could cameras ever reduce police violence? The truthful answer is: “maybe”. </p>
<h2>What we know so far</h2>
<p>In a recent <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10940-014-9236-3">study</a> in Rialto California my colleagues and I studied the effect of body-worn video (BWV) on police use-of-force and citizens’ complaints against the police. The study randomly assigned officer shifts to wearing cameras or not. We found that both police use-of-force and complaints were reduced during shifts where cameras were used and more widely across the police force during the experimental period. </p>
<p>That’s a “no brainer” as the saying goes. Experimental evidence has told us the answer: introduce cameras and, magically, use-of-force and complaints are reduced, right? Not quite. A point frequently overlooked in the commentary on the issue of BWV is that the “treatment” in our study was not just the camera: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“every crime type and virtually all encounters between the police and the public were assigned to recording as well as to a <em>verbal notification</em> by officers that the encounter is videotaped.” (emphasis added) </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67667/original/image-20141218-31028-4trtnv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67667/original/image-20141218-31028-4trtnv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67667/original/image-20141218-31028-4trtnv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67667/original/image-20141218-31028-4trtnv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67667/original/image-20141218-31028-4trtnv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67667/original/image-20141218-31028-4trtnv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67667/original/image-20141218-31028-4trtnv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">If cameras are mandatory will protests like this one be history.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That is, each and every time police were wearing a camera they were supposed to inform the citizen that they were doing so and that their encounter was being recorded. We haven’t yet reviewed the thousands of hours of footage recorded as part of this experiment to assess compliance with this element. But if we assume that this was true most of the time, then excitable discussions about the effectiveness of cameras (or otherwise) are missing an important point. Namely, both officer and citizen are being reminded about the monitoring of their behavior prior to their interaction starting. </p>
<h2>A heads-up about videotaping could help</h2>
<p>This verbal warning could sensitize people leading them to modify their behavior. It could also serve to remind people of the rules that are in play –- politeness being the bare minimum –- but other rules such as laws. Similarly, the verbal prompt may jolt individuals into thinking a little more before they act, becoming more deliberative and reflecting on future consequences. In short, there could be lots of mechanisms that account for changes in behavior when camera and verbal warning are used together.</p>
<p>The other limitation of our study, and one that has thus far been universally overlooked, is that the results we found may have been a fluke. In statistical terms we have only a single study showing an effect. It might be that this was a chance or even a so-called false discovery (i.e. we would expect to find a statistically significant effect some of the time). This is why Dr. Barak Ariel is undertaking a multi-country replication study: before claims of effectiveness can be made, we need to reduce the chance that the Rialto finding was the statistical equivalent of “luck.”</p>
<p>But all that work might come too late. President Obama recently requested US$263 million from Congress to buy 50,000 police cameras, help train police officers, and (apparently) restore trust in police.</p>
<p>Leaving aside the fact that trust cannot be bought and sold (it has to be earned as everyone’s grandmother tells them) what should that money be spent on? We would argue that if US$50 million is going to be spent on cameras, there is an ethical imperative to ensure that each time cameras are put in use somewhere new they are rigorously evaluated, as was the case in Rialto. Once these trials are completed and the evidence is in, we can add together all the grains of sand and draw firmer conclusions about whether cameras can be effective in reducing police use-of-force, but without verbal warning, we would argue that this is unlikely.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/35644/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The mere presence or absence of a camera does not deter violent behavior. We know this through decades of research on CCTV demonstrating that video monitoring has little to no effect on violent crime and…Alex Sutherland, Research associate, University of CambridgeBarak Ariel, Jerry Lee Fellow in Experimental Criminology and Lecturer in Evidence Based Policing, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/351342014-12-08T11:01:44Z2014-12-08T11:01:44ZWhy it’s time for pervasive surveillance…of the police<p>Michael Brown’s recent shooting death by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson illustrates the pressing importance of digitally documenting police activity, while Eric Garner’s case illustrates the limits. Had Officer Wilson been wearing a body camera, we would have a far better understanding of just what, exactly, triggered Brown’s death. But the existence of a video capturing Garner’s death-by-chokehold was not enough to persuade a New York grand jury to indict. So what does this tell us about the value of recordings? </p>
<p>We need recordings, and we need them not just to investigate high-profile shootings. There is a growing demand for accurate recording of the entire spectrum of police activity, making greater transparency of policing an urgent priority. However, recordings by themselves are not a magic bullet. </p>
<p>The need for more recording is undeniable. Unless a bystander has a cell-phone camera ready, our knowledge of contested facts too often depends solely on the reports of police officers and the citizens with whom they interact. Although we know that most police officers do make a good faith effort to accurately report the facts, we also know that some officers do not. For instance, according to a recent survey one out of every seventeen Denver police officers has been subject to administrative discipline for “departing from the truth” in matters related to their <a href="http://www.denverpost.com/ci_18448755">official duties</a> That figure counts only those who have been formally sanctioned. </p>
<p>Concerns about police dishonesty extend throughout the evidence-gathering phases of criminal procedure. Police officers have been found lying about observing suspects engaged in illegal activities, where and how contraband was recovered, and whether suspects consented to searches, were given <a href="http://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6013&context=law_lawreview">Miranda warnings, or confessed</a>.</p>
<h2>The mind can play tricks on us</h2>
<p>Even when police make good faith efforts to comply with the law, unintentional bias, poor memory, and sloppy procedures can undermine the accuracy of arrest reports, interview reports, and testimony. This leads investigators and courts to make incorrect inferences regarding the reliability or admissibility of evidence or even, in some cases, about a defendant’s substantive guilt. </p>
<p>Problems of this sort arise because the investigatory process occurs in a black box. Absent blind trust in the accuracy and honesty of first person accounts, we cannot be confident that we know what really happened.</p>
<p>While there are limits, digital recording technology presents a promising solution. Although some jurisdictions have begun to experiment with new recording technology, no jurisdiction has implemented a comprehensive digital recording requirement for all police activities. But it could be done. The technology now exists to cheaply and easily document all aspects of a police investigation. </p>
<p>Stationhouse questioning and lineup administration could be easily handled through use of conventional video recording devices. Dashboard cameras already record highway stops in numerous jurisdictions. For encounters in the field, as President Obama recent urged, so-called “body worn video” could cheaply and easily be used to document police-citizen encounters. </p>
<p>There are numerous reasons to use technology to monitor police activity. Visual recordings provide far more complete and accurate evidence of key evidentiary events, such as police-citizen confrontations, confessions and eyewitness identifications. Without recording, prosecutors, defense lawyers, judges, and juries are all left reconstructing the key events of an investigation based on often conflicting hearsay accounts from police, the defendant, and eyewitnesses. Given the ease of making a digital recordings, it is simply crazy to expect juries routinely to accept police officers’ hearsay accounts when they could instead be presented a real-time recording of the event.</p>
<p>Given the obvious advantages, the question is not whether we should routinely record police activity, but why such recording technology hasn’t already been more widely adopted. </p>
<h2>Police have their own reasons for objecting to video</h2>
<p>There are four main reasons. First, police departments believe, rightly or wrongly, that secrecy is vital to their effectiveness, and that courts and the general public will misperceive or misinterpret their conduct if they are caught taking shortcuts. Second, even entirely by-the-book police officers resist pervasive recording because of privacy concerns. Third, figuring out how to handle massive amounts of digital data presents real hurdles, and courts are reluctant to devote the resources needed to sift through the massive amounts of data that would be produced by pervasive recording, nor have they mastered how such data can be presented to jurors cheaply, efficiently, and consistent with traditional rules of evidence. Finally, police departments point to tight budgets as a reason not to invest in digital recording. </p>
<p>While these are real concerns, they are not insurmountable. Jurors are surprisingly sophisticated when it comes to understanding, and tolerating, legitimate but deceptive or devious investigative strategies. The police need for tactical secrecy must, at some point, give way to the need to deter police misconduct and document facts that might be critical to the determination of guilt and innocence. </p>
<p>Likewise, police officers’ potential privacy concerns, while understandable, are overstated. Employers generally are free to surveil their employees as long as they provide adequate notice. Police officers, moreover, are uniquely public actors and are routinely expected to perform their duties in front of spectators. (Of course, privacy concerns are not limited to police, and may be even more acutely felt by citizens who interact with them. Protections would need to be developed for them.) Finally, neither court procedures nor police budgets should stand in the way. The expense of digital cameras is relatively small. If using cameras prevents even one one major civil rights lawsuit, it would more than cover the costs. And whether or not we move toward widespread recording, big data is coming, and lawyers and courts will have to learn to handle it. The justice system will adapt.</p>
<p>Of course, cameras are no panacea. The Eric Garner case is only the latest reminder that people can see an event for themselves and still disagree about what happened. The difference, however, is that with the video, we have a basis for discussion. Like the Rodney King beating before it, the recording is the prerequisite for the conversation that followed. Factual knowledge is needed to figure out how, or whether, things must change. And increased transparency is needed not just in force cases, but at every stage of criminal justice. As both the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases so tragically demonstrate, we need to know the facts. That much is obvious. Figuring out what to do with that knowledge is more difficult, and even more essential.</p>
<p>_</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/35134/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Russell Dean Covey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Michael Brown’s recent shooting death by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson illustrates the pressing importance of digitally documenting police activity, while Eric Garner’s case illustrates the limits…Russell Dean Covey, Professor of Law, Georgia State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.