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Derek Stephens
Ms. Parrish
English 1010
May 14, 2015
Why More Transparency will protect law enforcement
Local police departments have begun to require their officers to do something that is a
sign of the times, wear body cameras recording their interactions with the public. This policy has
started to trend across the entire nation in wake of public uncertainty about police brutality and a
police officers Use-of Force. Protests in cities such as Ferguson, Missouri have been the result
of skepticism over whether an officer was justified in the use of lethal force. Some protests have
turned to rioting and looting.
In efforts to protect their community and their agency from accusations, body cameras
have started to appear on police officers during their regular patrol. Some agencies have gone as
far as posting their regular interactions with the community on YouTube. These recordings are a
great way to know exactly what happened if there is an incident involving an officer. Witnesses
cannot give a false account of what happened if there is video evidence. But there are still some
questions that body cameras cannot answer.
The video recording of an officer who resulted to use-of-force does tell us what
happened and when it happened, but it does not tell us if it should have happened, how often it
happens, and who is going to handle it. Different people will get a different opinion from
viewing the same video. So police departments need to have a clear policy of when it is ok for an
officer to use force to restrain a fugitive. So when a video of an incident is produced, someone

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with authority can look at the evidence and say confidently, yea this is clearly against our policy
and this officer should have known better.
According to the National Institute of Justice, Officers receive guidance from their
individual agencies, but no universal set of rules governs when officers should use force and how
much. Individual agencies are responsible for providing the guidelines for when an officer
should result to force. This is a problem when the general public may have an opinion of when
use of force is appropriate, but the guidelines and training for when use of force is appropriate
varies from agency to agency.
If there were a universal policy of when use of force is ok, each department would be
able to train their officers with better clarity of when to use force. The public would have a better
understanding of why force was used and if it was necessary. Such a policy would provide a
crackdown on police brutality and abuse of power.
In an article in The Gazette, Dubuque Police Lt. Scott Baxter says, an uniform review
and reporting policies would create more consistency and transparency in law enforcement,
something that would be beneficial in the current law enforcement climate. He is one who
believes that more transparency will help law enforcement and public relations improve.
But other law enforcement officials believe individual agencies should be able to compile
their own policies. According to The Gazette, officials in Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, and Waterloo
all support departments making their own policies. The Iowa City police captain is quoted as
saying, Different things work differently in different communities. Also Cedar Rapids Police
Department Capt. Bernie Walther explains why local control is important to him. Speaking on
the differences in types of communities that officers live in He says, Some departments are

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more traffic-enforcement focused, while other cities contend more with alcohol-related
problems.
But police departments determining their policies leads to outdated training in some areas and
puts lives at risk. In an article on policeone.com, Terrence P. Dwyer shares an experience on why
he thinks that having updated policy is important. He recalls a presentation he gave on officer
involved shootings. During my presentation, I referenced an agency near my New York home
that is guilty as charged. While representing an officer on a disciplinary matter, I had access to
this particular police departments manual. I attempted a quick reference to the agency manuals
use-of-force section to peruse its policy but was instead led to a twenty minute search to find the
use of force directive. When I did find it, the whole directive was all of three-quarters of a page
long and had not been updated in more than twenty years. In the article Dwyer states that,
there are still many police departments operating from agency manuals drafted in the 1970s and
80s with inadequate deadly force guidance for officers.
A universal policy would solve the problem of departments using outdated policies to
guide their officers when to use force. Neglected policy changes would not be a headache for
police administrators. Agencies would not have to budget time and resources to make policy
changes. The policy would already be there. It would be there to protect the department from
accusations of misconduct. The policy would give the public assurance of when an officer is
supposed to use their last option. The public would not be in the dark of this important aspect of
crime prevention. This is probably the best reason of why a universal policy is needed. When an
officer uses deadly force inappropriately, the public will know it. There will be no need for
protests and public outcry because the public will know that the officer will not get away with it.

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This could prevent distraught families from suing a police department and inevitably losing.
Officers would not be able to slip through the cracks and get away with abusive behavior
because their department does not prevent it.
In addition to a universal policy of when to use force, police departments could benefit from
reporting statistics of when excessive force was used. The National Institute of Justice states that,
The frequency of police use-of-force events that may be defined as justified or excessive is
difficult to estimate. There is no national database of officer-involved shootings or incidents in
which police use excessive force. Most agencies keep such records, but no mechanism exists to
produce a national estimate. If this was changed it would be easier to show that only a small
percentage of officers use excessive force. This data could show that the vast majority of officers
do not abuse their power.
According to The Gazette, unlike uniform crime statistics, which are reported to the FBI
annually, police departments are not required to submit most use-of-force numbers. But the
question is why not? What benefit would come if departments were expected to submit their data
on when force was used in an arrest? It would be easier to determine which departments are
overlooking excessive behavior in their officers. Departments that report a higher need to use
force than average could be better provided with more resources to protect and serve violent and
dangerous areas.
Some departments do already keep tabs on when force is used. In the same article by The
Gazette, Cedar Rapids Police Departments statistics are mentioned. The stats that are given are
that in between 2011 and 2013, use of force incidents occurred between 322 to 330 times. So
sense departments are already recording incidents, or are capable of keeping such recordings, it

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is not illogical to suggest that such data could be submitted to a national data base such as one
that the FBI could establish.
What the FBI does keep track of though is when a justified homicide occurs at the hands
of a police officer. But even this data is not exactly accurate. In a transcript of a segment of
National Public Radios Weekend All Things Considered, Arun Rath and Rob Barry discuss
how The Wall Street Journal found that a lot of killings by local police officers go unreported.
Barry tells Rath that of the 110 largest departments through a six-year period, 550 incidents were
recorded in the local departments, but were not reported to the FBI. Barry explains that this is not
a required thing. He continues to say that close to one third of the 110 agencies were not
participating in the reporting for one reason or another. This incidents are not just use of force
incidents, they are incidences where someones life was taken. So there is not even clear data for
how often deadly force occurs at the hands of law enforcement.
When I interviewed David Barker about his career as a FBI agent, one of the things he
mentioned was that some people just do not like FBI agents just because they work for the FBI.
He touched briefly on how there are individuals who hate law enforcement. There are
communities where law enforcement and the public do not get along. Even sometimes
individuals will not go to the police for help simply because they do not like cops. But the truth
of the matter is that most people in law enforcement are there to help make their communities
safer. Barker was a practicing attorney when he left his firm to join the FBI. He told me that he
could have made a lot more money working as an attorney. But he said that he has a John
Wayne complex. He wanted to go to work every day knowing that he was doing something that
matter. Something that was important. He knew doing his job he was putting the animals away.

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His experience in law enforcement was that everyone cared about catching the right guy, though
there was the occasional knuckle head who would cause some grief, most of law enforcement is
in it to help serve the community.
There is the misguided assumption that a lot of people have that police officers are
pigs. That the police are only doing their job because they want a badge to get away with being
jerks. As body cameras become as common as police with Tasers, squad cars, hand cuffs, and
blue uniforms, there needs to be a clear guideline for when what is on those cameras is
reviewed. The universal policy on use of force would allow an officers superior to not shy away
from what they may see. Local departments need to have confidence that is recorded when their
officers interact with the public will be appropriate and what was trained for, even when things
get out of control. There needs to be a uniform policy of when an officer uses force so no
policemen is referring to outdated guidelines. The public need not think that those who are there
to protect and serve are really there to hurt them.
With body cameras recording everyday patrol of a police officer, it is predictable that the
only video that is going to make the headlines will be of the few instances when an officer
resulted to or even wrongfully used force. The videos of everything going smoothly will not
gather national attention. So departments will want to start making their information on when
their officers used force more available so it can easily be shown that their agency does not use
an abnormal amount force. This data could gain more public trust and confidence.

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Works Cited
Hermiston, Lee Gazette, The (Cedar Rapids, IA). 02/22/2015.
"Key Considerations for Good Use-of-force Policies." PoliceOne. N.p., n.d. Web.
14 May 2015.
"Police Use of Force." National Institute of Justice. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 May 2015.
Weekend All Things Considered (NPR). 12/07/2014.