Prisoners Sue Alabama, Calling Prison Labor System a ‘Form of Slavery’

[David Lockmiller]

New York Times, December 14, 2023, The Morning: A disappointing policing change

In June 2022, 79 police killings were captured by police cameras nationwide. In the year and a half since, the police has released video in only 42 percent of those incidents.

Police departments can refuse to release videos for longer, if ever. Five years after an officer in Montgomery, Alabama, sicced his dog on a burglary suspect and killed him, the department still has not released the footage, citing the potential for “civil unrest.”

In 2013, a federal judge ordered New York officers to start piloting the use of cameras. Surveys indicated that the public supported the idea. But when the N.Y.P.D. established the policy, it decided that no video would automatically become public. To obtain footage, people would have to submit a request through an opaque and slow process. The N.Y.P.D. would decide what to release.