Fitting ICE Officers With Body Cams Will Be Ineffective - Explained by Alec Karakatsanis

ICE Officer in a Black Vest

In light of the fatal shootings of Nicole Renee Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti, there have been calls for accountability and efforts to achieve this.

While some democrats have argued for the abolishment of ICE with the idea of a looming shutdown, some democrats are asking for weaker restrictions. Some proposed restrictions are good, and others are Orwellian in nature:

A general ask had been to implement a code of conduct... which already exists. ICE has repeatedly violated the existing code of conduct with no accountability for doing so.
Masks off! In order to avoid another government shutdown, having masks off is one tangible step towards accountability. With Republicans majority in office, it is unlikely that ICE will answer to any meaningful repercussion today. In mandating the removal of masks, future leadership can prosecute and hold perpetrators of violence under the status of ICE accountable.
Wearing identification has been suggested. Many members of ICE are actively concealing their identity by wearing masks. Wearing identification is a weaker solution as those identifications will be obscured with weapons and arms during operations.
Wearing body cameras, which is the most preposterous suggestion, did not stop the killing of Good and Pretti. In fact, the police officer who shot Renee Good filmed himself while doing so.

According to Alec Karakatsanis, a civil rights lawyer and author, claims that body cameras are a step in the wrong direction. Overwhelming research and the federal governments own position for a decade or more has been that body cameras do not reduce police violence.

Alec continues, having body cameras can "dramatically increase surveillance capacities to link to facial recognition software to there was billions of dollars at stake in cloud computing contracts for the tech industry and the surveillance policing industry. The prosecutors wanted them so they could prosecute in higher volume, lower-level cases against the most vulnerable people in society."

The reality shows that the type of crimes that police track, which largely entails the crimes of the most vulnerable people in society, is at an all time low. To emphasize further, it has been decreasing almost every single year for the last 25 years, according to Alec. To add, our police, prisons and prosecutors are not investigating or prosecuting our biggest crimes in our society like:

Wage theft - 50 billion dollars a year. That is five times all of the property crime that police track combined.
Tax evasion - one trillion dollars a year
Air pollution - killing 100,000 people yearly. That is five times all of homicide combined.

Recording and surveillance capacities will increase if ICE works with body cameras; they are not a reform to any police violence. ICE has a billion dollar contract with private companies who it believes can help identify and surveil the residences and places of work of individuals. Take Ken Klippenstein's account that ICE has a secret of watchlist of Americans, not just immigrants. Identification software can be potentially more damaging on this aspect. There has been reporting that ICE is scanning the crowds protesting and mapping people's faces.

For further clarity and formal research on the matter, Alec Karakatsanis has written extensively about body cameras with more granular detain in Copaganda: How Police and the Media Manipulate Our News.

Call (202) 224 3121 to connect with either the US Senate or the House of Representatives to suggest more tangible terms for holding ICE accountable.