A Win-Win Situation

An agreement between the city of Boston and its Police Patrolmen’s Association this past July to equip volunteer officers with body cameras in a pilot program should have been a commendable measure toward increased police accountability. Instead, no officers stepped up, prompting Police Commissioner William Evans to select 100 to enter the program. The Association sued in response, postponing the start of the initiative.

Officers’ refusal to volunteer, and the police union’s subsequent lawsuit, are both unfortunate setbacks to a promising program. Researchers have found that body cameras effectively reduce use of force and a majority of officers assigned to wear them ultimately view their use more favorably and believe they should be implemented on a larger scale. In a year in which 741 people—a disproportionate number of them persons of color—have been killed by police so far, any reasonable initiative to combat police brutality should be adopted.

While body cameras are a step in the right direction, Boston’s focus on that initiative should not preclude the police department from minimizing its use of force in other ways. This includes reducing police militarization, which we have previously decried, and increasing diversity within the department.

Furthermore, police officers’ actions result from the environments in which they are trained, and police trainings’ emphasis on using force, coupled with officers’ fear for their lives in the dangerous situations they face, are partially responsible for unnecessary violence in other situations.

Therefore, Evans’s decision to implement the program despite a lack of voluntary participation should in no way be seen as a punishment for police officers. On the contrary, body cameras serve as a valuable corrective to police violence. This measure should, and will, benefit police officers as well as the communities they serve.

For instance, officers equipped with body cameras will likely receive fewer complaints, as one study found an 88 percent reduction in complaints after the introduction of body cameras to a Californian police force. Responsible officers equipped with cameras will also be able to provide video evidence in case any actions they take are questioned.