Hacker News Reader

Comment by bboreham | Hacker News Reader

This bit is as interesting as the headline:

> there was no significant difference in complaints between officers wearing cameras that week and those going without.

IIRC, they rotated the cameras between officers, and postulated that wearing the cameras had some sort of lasting affect on the attitude of the officers (even when there were no cameras). That said, all officers knew that they were part of this study and could have just been on their best behaviour.

    > all officers knew that they were part of this study
    > and could have just been on their best behaviour.

I feel like any explanation that isn't this one has the burden of proof

I'm shooting in the dark, but can this be explained by the fact that people don't know whether the officer has a body camera or not, but won't take the risk? tbh I don't know how big/noticeable they are,.

Panopticon. All Police should be fitted with a "camera", some can be dummies for budgeting reasons.

Maybe public should do the same?

Don't you think it's more likely that the police involved - who all knew about and experienced wearing the body cams for a portion of their shifts - modified their overall behaviour, than assume that the unrelated public - who very likely don't know that police are trialling the cameras, were told when they were being recorded, and who probably haven't individually had multiple interactions with police before/during the trial (ie. to learn and modify their behaviour, even when they knew they were not being filmed by body cameras) - all managed to modify their behaviour, without conferring or conspiring, in line with the trial time?

Honestly, I have no clue about the proportion of police abuse vs. false claims. I assumed the latter was more important, but I'm probably wrong, now that I think about it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com