The main goal of the Point Park Police department is to keep students safe on and around campus, but stepping into the shoes of police officers and viewing life from their perspective can sometimes become a difficult task. We’re constantly fed information by the media about police brutality, as well as controversial news when it comes to the contact between police officers and civilians. However, without physically being at the scene, how can we know what actually happens on the streets?

A new technology on our campus can help answer that question: police body cameras. Body cameras have recently grown into daily use of police officers in modern society, including Point Park Police. A 2016 article from the National Institute of Justice showed that 75 percent of police departments did not use body cameras. Further National Institute of Justice research looked at issues that come up when discussing body cams, i.e. the quality of the camera itself.

Can these cameras decrease the chance of unnecessary police escalations? How will this affect students on campus?

I first thought that police body cameras could potentially tarnish the relationship between police officers and individuals. Students, faculty and other people may feel as if they deserve privacy, and extra stress on our community may increase tension between them and police officers wearing body cameras.

So what’s the big hoopla about police body cameras? Are they even useful?

According to a 2014 Washington University article, after Michael Brown was shot in Ferguson, Mo., Officer Darren Wilson failed to be indicted for his crime – taking the life of a human being. This only heightened an existing mistrust between police officers and citizens of Ferguson. After Ferguson, some people suggested widespread use of police body cameras to keep police officers accountable for their actions. Many similar incidents of police brutality and extrajudicial killings are still occurring around the United States today.

In a 2016 article by The Professional Voice of Law Enforcement, Craig E. Geis, a retired Lieutenant Colonel from the United States Army, explained that police body cameras have HD quality playback of everything that is in its viewable angle.

This means that there’s a stark difference between these high quality cameras and the human eye. There are other feats that this technology can perform that the human eye and brain are not capable of.

“The subconscious brain rejects significant amounts of incoming bandwidth, sending only a small fraction of its data on to the conscious brain,” Geiss said. “While the camera has global attention and will record all the data from its field of view on film to be viewed later, human physiology is not recording the same level of data to be stored in memory.”

More simply, police body cameras are capable of viewing more angles and processing information at a more precise quality than the human eye. While watching an event, I might interpret it completely different than what is recorded by a camera.

If body cameras can accurately depict the occurrences of downtown Pittsburgh, then maybe they aren’t such a bad idea after all. Not only will students be able to feel safe on campus, but the actions of police officers on campus could be reviewed if needed. Both the police officers and students can benefit from the camera.

However, these body cameras may play into the already-present power dynamics that shift accountability from the police. The body cameras at Point Park only work when the officer chooses to turn the camera on. As regular citizens, we have no control over the actions of officers. It might force officers to avoid certain actions, but it’s not a catch-all solution. In a 2015 Washington Times article, body cameras are not even listed as one of the solutions.

In the article, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake made it clear that better police training could help decrease such a complicated problem. Yet, she said that “police need to learn more about logistics of policing but also the broader significance of their role in society.”

Body cameras won’t erase police brutality, but merely cover up the issue. The obvious solution isn’t always the best solution.

Police body cameras can act as a safeguard and may even increase our quality of campus life. So the next time you walk by a police officer, you may be curious enough to ask whether or not he or she sees similar positive aspects from wearing a body camera. It’s interesting to analyze other’s views on such a complicated subject. After all, you may feel a little safer with such impressive and well-developed technology.