The opinion of the cops - our employees - about the requirements of their job is not particularly interesting.
Failure to follow means they should find a new job. If they decide to make a habit of "forgetting" their badge (aka camera), then they have no authority, and are not doing their job. Charge them with [attempted] murder if they shoot [at] anybody.
Compare the camera requirement with any other job's requirements: retail employees are on camera when on the job almost 100% of the time. If a an employee at the US Postal Service decided to regularly "leave behind" mail, they won't keep their job. If "mens rea" can be shown, they might even face charges.
No, the opinion of the cops was not asked for. The people that we would need buy-in from (not counting the usual politicians would need to be included to get anything passed) are the prosecutors and regulators, not the cops. The local prosecutor needs to actually go after the nastier charges whenever they might happen, or they are really just aiding-and-abetting original crime (willingly choosing to not report a felony that you have direct knowledge of is itself a felony).
The cops need to be given a choice. They can:
(1) use the cameras (and the implicit attitude changes that would require)
(2) face charges for acts that require certain additional powers while willfully ignoring the the mandatory requirements of those powers
(3) have fun on the unemployment line and/or explain to the prosecutors why they screwed up their evidence collection
While I would agree that getting the DA to prosecute is currently an issue, even a usually pro-cop DA is going to be very annoyed if all the evidence is regularly thrown out due to improper collection.
They are a law unto themselves and they simply are not going to give that up! Notionally I agree that they are your employees, but practically what your suggestion will not be allowed happen.
Put it to you this way, if I were a cop I would resign sooner than work under those conditions.
The level of resistance the cops will put up to maintain their current status is obvious, with the armed robbery, assault, intimidation, disregard for the law, and general "violent gang"-like behavior. I expect strongly that at least some amount of actual shooting-war will be required to correct this situation.
What I'm suggesting that a necessary step in the basic concept of having a police force. The nature of the job by necessity requires us to grant some extra powers and exceptions in law to the people we hire to enforce it. Unfortunately, history shows that not only can we not trust that those powers will not be abused, we also cannot trust that the usual check against abuses of power will be implemented (or even attempted at all). Various types of regulatory capture, institutional corruption, and far too many people choosing to look the other way have demonstrated very clearly a list of methods that do not work.
The key problem in all of that tends to center around someone being able to abuse their powers freely while retaining a very high level of trust. Tying police powers to the camera separates these issues, and might be the start of a much-larger plan to fix this mess we're in. I don't expect that the people currently benefiting from the situation will like it. In fact, as they are (by definition) violent criminals, I expect the people committing the worst abuses will fight back. Hard.
I suggest we start solving that problem now, regardless of the difficulty. Power accumulates, so this will only be harder in the future. I don't have a miracle solution for how to enact these ideas - that is going to be hard regardless..
Failure to follow means they should find a new job. If they decide to make a habit of "forgetting" their badge (aka camera), then they have no authority, and are not doing their job. Charge them with [attempted] murder if they shoot [at] anybody.
Compare the camera requirement with any other job's requirements: retail employees are on camera when on the job almost 100% of the time. If a an employee at the US Postal Service decided to regularly "leave behind" mail, they won't keep their job. If "mens rea" can be shown, they might even face charges.
No, the opinion of the cops was not asked for. The people that we would need buy-in from (not counting the usual politicians would need to be included to get anything passed) are the prosecutors and regulators, not the cops. The local prosecutor needs to actually go after the nastier charges whenever they might happen, or they are really just aiding-and-abetting original crime (willingly choosing to not report a felony that you have direct knowledge of is itself a felony).
The cops need to be given a choice. They can:
(1) use the cameras (and the implicit attitude changes that would require)
(2) face charges for acts that require certain additional powers while willfully ignoring the the mandatory requirements of those powers
(3) have fun on the unemployment line and/or explain to the prosecutors why they screwed up their evidence collection
While I would agree that getting the DA to prosecute is currently an issue, even a usually pro-cop DA is going to be very annoyed if all the evidence is regularly thrown out due to improper collection.