Police in America. Steven G. Brandl

      Photo 1.3 The Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution limits the power of the police and provides citizens protections from the police.

      ©iStockphoto.com/RyanJLane

      The freedoms that people enjoy in our society are dynamic, always changing. For example, in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, there was a massive reorganization of federal law enforcement efforts and the passage of significant new legislation (the USA PATRIOT Act in particular) that provided new powers to the government in collecting information on citizens. As discussed in more detail later in this book, for better or for worse, and accurately or not, this law was presented as a new tool in the war against terrorism. It increased the power of the government and correspondingly decreased the rights and privacy of citizens. Conversely, in the 1960s, a series of landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions, including Mapp v. Ohio (1961) and Miranda v. Arizona (1966), gave citizens more freedoms from the government but, some argued, “handcuffed the police.”

      Freedom is a relative concept. Much variation exists among societies and governments in the freedoms that are afforded to their citizens (Exhibit 1.2). Therefore, in some societies, the police are oriented more toward exerting the power of the government than protecting citizens’ rights. If citizens have fewer rights, there are fewer rights to protect. If citizens have fewer rights, the government has more power. If the government has more power, the police have more power.

      The U.S. Constitution—and in particular the Bill of Rights, which comprises the first ten amendments—articulates several freedoms of the nation’s citizens (see Appendix A). These are best considered civil liberties or freedoms from government. The Bill of Rights is not just words on paper. These are rules that the government must abide by in treating citizens. The government in this case often refers specifically to the police and the criminal justice system. The police are not free to do whatever they want. Because of the Constitution and the legal decisions associated with it, the police have rules to follow in dealing with citizens.

      Bill of Rights: The first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution; these amendments articulate several basic freedoms of the nation’s citizens.

      Police Accountability in a Free Society

      Another important dimension of our free society and the role the police play in it is that officers are accountable for their actions through a system of elected government. Citizens have the power of the vote and the power to organize and protest. If citizens are not satisfied with the leaders of the government, those leaders can lose their jobs by not being reelected. In many communities, mayors hire and fire police chiefs. Mayors have expectations of police chiefs, who, in turn, have expectations of their officers. If officers behave improperly, it reflects on the chief. In turn, the chief is a reflection on the mayor. There is a long list of chiefs, and even mayors, who have lost their jobs because of officer misconduct or other unsatisfactory police department performance. In spite of this process, how best to ensure police accountability is a continuing concern and objective.

      Exhibit 1.2 Governmental Power Versus Citizens’ Rights

      Many countries severely restrict the rights of their citizens. For example, consider the cases of Saudi Arabia, Russia, and North Korea. For a more complete discussion of this issue, visit the website of Amnesty International.⁶

      In Saudi Arabia, all females require male guardianship. Further, governmental authorities severely repress religious freedoms and freedom to express views against the government. Authorities are responsible for arbitrary arrests, and torture, and other ill-treatment of detainees.⁷

      In Russia, laws restrict lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) individuals and supporters of LGBTI rights from holding peaceful demonstrations to fight for equal rights. Officials have said that such demonstrations violate rules against “propaganda of homosexuality.” In addition, human rights proponents who have complained about law enforcement misconduct have been subject to harassment, death threats, and murder, or they have simply disappeared.⁸

      The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) is arguably one of the least free countries on Earth and is often referred to as a police state. The government severely restricts rights to freedom of expression, and travel outside the country is largely prohibited. It is estimated that 120,000 people are incarcerated in political prison camps, detained only for being related to individuals who are viewed as threatening to the government. All media and telecommunications systems are owned by the government. There is no access to the Internet or international phone service for the vast majority of North Koreans. Police agencies operate in such ways as to ensure that privacy among citizens does not exist. Surveillance is constant. It is not an exaggeration to say that North Korean citizens have no rights.⁹

      Besides accountability through elected government, another way to provide accountability of the police is through organizational transparency. Law enforcement agencies are transparent when the operations, policy, and the decisions made by officers and police leaders are visible to citizens. The most recent attempt at increasing transparency is the deployment of police body-worn cameras¹⁰ (BWCs; see Technology on the Job). Other mechanisms of transparency and accountability include increasing citizen input and involvement in police operations, such as through public meetings and hearings, and citizen involvement in the process of investigating citizen complaints of officer conduct. Police sharing information with citizens, even through social media,¹¹ has also been represented as way by which to increase organizational transparency. The media, through independent investigations and reports on the police, may provide increased transparency and accountability of the police.¹² Law enforcement agencies and officers today are expected to be accountable for their actions; however, this often proves to be a hard-to-attain goal.

      Technology on the Job

      Police Body-Worn Cameras

      Video cameras worn by police officers are one of the most recent and far-reaching technologies to be incorporated into police work. “Body-worn cameras (BWCs) are small, transportable devices worn by officers to record interactions with the public. The cameras can be attached to an officer’s clothing, sunglasses, or helmet. BWCs can produce video and audio recordings. The footage is saved on a local storage device or uploaded to a web-based storage platform. Some BWCs can upload video while in the field.”¹³ BWCs vary in their characteristics and capabilities including battery-life, size, placement options, quality of video, video and audio options, download capability, and cost.¹⁴

      A 2016 Bureau of Justice Statistics survey found that 47% of local police departments used body-worn cameras; in about one-half of these agencies, all officers are equipped with BWCs.¹⁵ Calls for the use of body-worn cameras began after the shooting of an unarmed African American teen, Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. Then, in December 2014, President Barack Obama issued a proposal for $75 million in federal funding to local and state law enforcement agencies to purchase body-worn cameras. As discussed in several sections of this book, the cameras are intended to have many effects; examining these effects is one of the most popular topics of policing research today. From a police perspective, the five most commonly expressed reasons for using BWCs are the following:¹⁶