Test of police body cameras reveals that they don't magically cure police corruption.

[Towlie]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/20/upshot/a-big-test-of-police-body-cameras-defies-expectations.html

For seven months, just over a thousand Washington, D.C., police officers were randomly assigned cameras — and another thousand were not. Researchers tracked use-of-force incidents, civilian complaints, charging decisions and other outcomes to see if the cameras changed behavior. But on every metric, the effects were too small to be statistically significant. Officers with cameras used force and faced civilian complaints at about the same rates as officers without cameras.

This test completely misses the point. We all know that there are corrupt police officers, but the purpose of body cameras shouldn't be to somehow transform them into law-abiding, civil rights-respecting, enforcers of the law, it should be to catch them in the act, prosecute them, and convict them. With that in mind the fact that these officers aren't dissuaded by body cameras could actually be good news. It should make it easier to catch them and deal with them.

Maybe the reason the cameras don't seem to make a difference is that those corrupt officers know they'll get away with what they do, camera or no camera. Prosecutors won't prosecute them, juries won't convict them, and above all, they have the backing of our nation's president.

[Dotarded]

1. Its not hard

Police video/audio should be running the entire time an officer is on duty with no off switch. The only thing I could see argued against is using the bathroom in which case you leave it in the car and any arrest or action you take while away from that camera/audio is immediately thrown out of court and pinned on you personally as an LEO.

All of the video/audio taken by police in a public location should be immediately available to the public for viewing. There is no violation of any rights as any video taken by anyone in a public location is free to be taken and distributed.

And finally the big one. In cases involving cops a prosecutor from a locale separate and that does not work with that police force should be the lead.