The Newest Technology in Law Enforcement Essay

Over the last few years there has been much controversy leading up to the need for law enforcement officers to wear body cameras. This is not only for citizens but also for the officers’ protection. With so much debate regarding police brutality and excessive force body cameras are quickly on the rise. New technology is giving police on a state and federal level a new opportunity to cut back on some of the allegations and negativity we have seen in the last few years. On the other hand it is giving citizens all over the country the safety they should feel when being approached by law enforcement. Our technology has improved significantly over the years and this seems to be something that will benefit everyone.

Technology used in policing enhances law enforcement organizations’ ability to function because it has improved police databases, reports, tracking, and forensics (DOJ, 2004). In addition, a less-lethal weapon is designed to disable, capture, or immobilize a suspect without killing them. However, occasionally deaths do happen as a result of less-lethal weapons which include kinetic energy, electrical, acoustic, and chemical weapons. Furthermore, violence, disease, and infected evidence are dangers that law enforcement officers face today.

From the night watch in Boston, to the present day policing, law enforcement has behind in the world of technology. As time rolled through the political era, professional era, and community-oriented era, police patrols would use the rapidly advancing technology in their favor. "Those were desperate times for policemen in a hostile country with unpaved streets and uneven sidewalks, sometimes miles from the police station, with little prospects of assistance in case of need.... It took nerve to be a policeman in those days," this was reported by Chief Francis O 'Neill of the Chicago Police Department in 1903. With only having a printing press and a multiple-shot revolver over a hundred years ago, the advancement in technology today has helped improve the policing methods in patrol quite significantly. However, technology would eventually out-run the police.

Body cameras in policing are still new, but more and more agencies are beginning to implement this technology into their line of work. At first police officers were very hesitant to wear these body cameras because they were afraid they would infringe themselves and give away their own privacy. Later, as body cameras were beginning to see more use in the work place, officers began to realize that these very own body cameras that they once thought would only cause themselves harm would actual prove to be useful in a variety of situations. Some of these situations can be citizen complaints, to even backing up an officers use of force. Body cameras can be the one sole thing that can give

All together law enforcement has changed, but few see the drastic changes that have happened. Everyday, police and sheriffs are working to keep the people in their community safe. With improved technological advances and social changes, police and sheriffs are keeping a closer eye on things today. For example, improved weapons such as tasers have helped keep suspects safe, computers in police cruisers allow instant access of information of individuals. Other social changes, such as women allowed to join the police forces have helped law enforcement a lot with domestic violence cases because they are calmer then most men. No matter what happens police and the sheriffs will be there to protect and serve

In today’s world, body cameras are being worn by more than half of the police officers in the United States. Many people will say that body cameras are invading their privacy and they will cause bigger issues, but others will say that the body cameras are an improvement and will help everyone out in the long run by resolving the issues. Body cameras will prevent incidents of police brutality and improve law enforcement. They should be worn for the police officer’s safety as well as the citizens who are interacting with the police, so that way the footage will show what really happened in a situation.

Marfin stated the different issues presented for the department, such as the individual privacy and cost as she discussed UTPD’s process of implementing this technology. She emphasized this by stating “UTPD began testing different versions of body cameras two years ago, but the implementation of the technology took many years to complete” (par.9). Although the time and cost of the body-cameras brought issues to the department the author emphasizes that UTPD’s main goal is to build trust between the community and the police officers to ensure the community’s safety. Therefore, they made sure to invest in their safety by enforcing body cameras on the officers as explained in the article, ““This is something we believe is important to the UT community and to UTPD,” UTPD Chief David Carter said. “This is something to ensure that people have confidence and trust when it comes to our department.”” (par. 3). Throughout the article the cost of the cameras is highlighted informing how the technology works and what exactly it does to preserve the safety in the community. She emphasizes this statement by saying

While body cameras can benefit police tremendously, they can also cause concern for

Writing has many tools and devices that can be used to influence the purpose and meaning of the a piece of work. In the two pieces of work, "Private License Plate Scanners Amassing Vast Databases Open to Highest Bidders-which is written in a way that it is anti-license plate tracking- and "Who Has the Right to Track You?'-which is written to be for license plate tracking- many different tools and devices are used by the authors. These pieces of work describe the benefits and drawbacks of collecting data and tracking fellow citizens, but use different forms of pathos, ethos, and logos to portray what they are trying to say. Also, both articles state how many are opposed to this tracking, arguing that it is against the First Amendment,

These types of devices would help show an omniscient side to a very chaotic situation. In an article titled “Police Use New Technologies to Fight Crime” by George Avalos, a business reporter for the Bay Area News Group who covers the economy, jobs, PG&E, Chevron, financial companies and commercial real estate, Mr. Avalos discusses the new technology that is used in the police force by the officers. This article also hits home on the idea of attaining body worn cameras for all police departments because of the benefits of wearing body cameras. When talking about these new technological devices, the article ends by stating that “license plate readers, facial recognition technologies, [and] videos from body cameras, coupled with street cameras and drones, could be aggregated into huge databases that can enable law enforcement to improperly gather information about people's habits and destinations” (Avalos). Being able to compile all of this information could help uncover secret operations, such as drug deals, and could potentially catch wanted criminals or future criminals. Having body cameras that have facial recognition would help the police identify people who may not have a valid license on them. On the other hand, police officers can abuse the very thing that could also make their job easier. Many police officers may use these devices as an intimidator. Emmeline Taylor, a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at City, University of London, states in her article “Police Detainee Perspectives on Police Body-worn Cameras”, that some police officers can abuse the technology that is available to them to prevent something; “While [the use of BWCs has] been encouraged to assist in reducing racial profiling in stop and search, they could produce other types of discrimination, such as being used to intimidate and record in

When officers are determining who is watchful they are working under extensive confusion. We all are aware of this because about 37% of the time the citizens they stop aren’t doing anything illegal and/or not engaged in any crimes.

In this day and age law enforcement agencies use many different types of technology in order to help combat and fight crime. Because technology is forever changing this means law enforcement officials need to stay up to date with the latest technology. I wanted to go over technology that is available to police officers, prison guards, and probation officers. One of the many technologies available to police officers are fingerprint technology which provides him the opportunity to successfully lift prints throughout a crime scene. Once these prints are lifted they will go through the proper chain of custody and be processed by the officers local or state lab to see if there is a match. Another form of technology is if blood is found at the crime, any type of blood that is found at the crime scene of course it would be swabbed, for anything that is collected you would also need to

Do you remember when our policemen had to ride around on horses to get from place to place? Most probably have heard about it, but think to themselves ‘all I have ever known as police cars and motorcycles’. For over a century the world has been making advances with technology in all areas of life, and the field of criminal justice has not been an exception to this technological advances. These advances in technology has taken the criminal justice field a long way from riding a horse bareback to driving armored cars. These advances along with many others have almost completely changed how things are handled in all aspects of the law.

Technology in the policing field has revolutionized the way police officers go about their job on a daily bases. It is constantly changing for both the good and the bad, and helps to create a safer and better environment for citizens to live in. Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) is just one of the many technologies that have been discovered, and put into place throughout the policing community. Automatic Number Plate Recognition is means of surveillance that uses optical character recognition on various images and makes reading license plate numbers possible. They do this through the use of existing closed-circuit television, road enforcement cameras, or ones specifically designed for the task. This technology has been

The automated Fingerprint Identification System is also known as the AFIS within the law enforcement division (FBI, 2010). This system is an important element in the criminal justice system as some of its features encompass the storing of data, encoding, and fingerprint and facial comparison through graphics and other techniques. Law officials many centuries ago in the pursuit of positively identifying someone suspected of guilt have long used fingerprints techniques. Fingerprinting is also used in branches of our government, and in the Pentagon, the authentication method of fingerprints is used permit access to specified zones inside the building. Fingerprints are an effective and very precise method of identification purposes that does not pose