It's estimated by the National Institute of Justice that as many as 55,000 accused criminals are set free per year because of the exclusionary rule of flawed evidence. This because of relevant and incriminating evidence deemed inadmissible based on the method it was collected.
A technicality? Yes. Rampant? Yes. Solvable? Yes.
Officers work every day to protect the people and communities they serve. Criminals, on the other hand, work on loopholes to enable their anti-social behavior to continue consequence free.
Year 2010 sang the song of video surveillance becoming commonplace for both peace officers and homeland security. First installed into vehicles, secondarily portable for personal and personnel recordings. Federal and state budgets are realigning themselves to compensate for the demand and potential saturation of these products, which foretell themselves to be commonplace soon, even if the fear of Big Brother lingers.
Mobile video and audio cameras both fixed in vehicles and covertly placed on devices for officers and security personnel to carry offer significant advantages for both the officer and the department for evidence recording as well as liability buffering. Fact is, many criminals are savvy enough to avoid the obvious video surveillance and it is only the covert that provides the evidence needed to prove guilt.
Fixed vehicular cameras and microphones are limiting and thus the push for mobile or portable video and audio recording devices. Considering the benefits, would it be to enable officers to approach a suspect regardless of the environment? How beneficial would it be for the officer to document exactly the evidence they experience in the field? How beneficial do you believe forensic scientists would deem that video and audio for the purposes of collected evidence for trial? Argument could be made that this is better for both the officer as well as the public, in lieu of Big Brother; the volume of criminals secured by hard evidence protects the people.
Since most officers already carry a tactical flashlight, incorporating the video and audio recording capabilities into that light would afford the officer increased function without the increase bulk of an additional gadget to carry and operate. Available in the marketplace today are the LumenCam (dot com) and the Eye3 (eye3 data dot com).
Portable and mobile video and audio cameras with light functions afford officers the ability to document their probable cause or scene, regardless of limited lighting or secluded environments. In this way the officers, evidence, cases, victims and society as a whole views the facts, not hearsay.