Twitter Q & A today!/Mini-Doc/2015 Calendar
IN THIS ISSUE:
*2015 Little Vics Calendar!
*Return from Germany!
*New Keef Mini-Documentary!
*Twitter Q&A this Friday!!
*Happy Holidaze to all! I am back from a month in Germany doing comic slideshows on police brutality in the U.S. Ferguson was burning by the time I did my last show in Berlin!
Now is the time to bring it to the States. My goal is to do at least one comic slideshow in every State in 2015-2016.
If anybody has any suggestions of universities, art/performance spaces, libraries or bookstores that I can bring this to, let me know at keef@kchronicles.com
*THE 2015 LITTLE VICS/MEGAMIX CALENDAR
My new calendar is available for order at the website store. Chock full of all kinds of Keefie-ness: Little Vics, (th)inks, K Chronicles, Knight Lifes and Thuggers!! There are only about 100 left of 250, signed and numbered, so order yours now:
https://kchronicles.com/store/buy-books-calendars-stuff.html
If you’re in L.A., I’ll also be tabling at my kid’s school Winter Faire this Saturday, Dec. 13th, from 9:30-5pm. Ocean Charter School, 12606 Culver Blvd. Los Angeles 90066. I’ll have calendars, my latest books, prints, and my kid’s homemade earrings.
*NEW KEEF MINI DOC!!
OOH Yeah! I’m honored to have been the first artist chosen to be featured in a new short documentary series by art patron site, Patreon. It’s got the wifey and kids..the cafe where I draw in Los Angeles… And me doing a piece from my police brutality slideshow. And it’s only 7 minutes long! You can see it here:
http://www.patreon.com/creation?hid=1321399
And thanks to all you patrons out there! Just imagine if everyone donated a $1 a month…
*KEEF TWITTER Q&A THIS FRIDAY!!
I will be answering all of your pertinent questions this Friday via a GoComics Twitter Q&A starting at 11:30 Pacific Time. #askkeithknight
Alrighty then..Cheers for making Black Friday a day of protest instead of a day of mass consumption. Shall we make it an annual thing?
Cheers!
Keef
Gentleman Cartoonist Esq.
Support my cartoons through Patreon:
http://www.patreon.com/keefknight
Ran into a press release for a study on police cams that is likely to interest you:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-12/uoc-fsr122414.php
I am hoping that it is possible by using this box to get this comment directly to Keith Knight, rather than for publication. My bad eye is kicking ip this morning so my editing job is not at the level i would want to acheive for public use
Selected QUOTES
Researchers from the University of Cambridge’s Institute of Criminology (IoC) have now published the first full scientific study of the landmark crime experiment they conducted on policing with body-worn-cameras in Rialto, California in 2012 — the results of which have been cited by police departments around the world as justification for rolling out this technology.
The experiment showed that evidence capture is just one output of body-worn video, and the technology is perhaps most effective at actually preventing escalation during police-public interactions: whether that’s abusive behaviour towards police or unnecessary use-of-force by police.
The researchers say the knowledge that events are being recorded creates “self-awareness” in all participants during police interactions. This is the critical component that turns body-worn video into a ‘preventative treatment’: causing individuals to modify their behaviour in response to an awareness of ‘third-party’ surveillance by cameras acting as a proxy for legal courts — as well as courts of public opinion — should unacceptable behaviour take place.
During the 12-month Rialto experiment, use-of-force by officers wearing cameras fell by 59% and reports against officers dropped by 87% against the previous year’s figures.
President Obama recently promised to spend $75m of federal funds on body-worn-video…
But some in the US question the merit of camera technology given that the officer responsible for killing Eric Garner — a 43-year-old black man suffocated during arrest for selling untaxed cigarettes — was acquitted by a grand jury despite the fact that a bystander filmed…
[personal note: local prosecutors who work closely w the force in question should NEVER be assigned to represent the victim in police killings; there is too much conflict of interest]
…
For the Cambridge researchers, the Rialto results show that body-worn-cameras can mitigate the need for such evidence by preventing excessive use-of-force in the first place. Data from the Rialto experiment shows police officers are deterred from unacceptable uses-of-force — indeed, from using force in general — by the awareness that an interaction is being filmed; but this ‘deterrence’ relies on cognition of surveillance.
While the evidence provided by the video of Garner’s death would suggest a heinous miscarriage of justice, say researchers, the filming itself by a bystander would not generate the self-awareness and consequent behaviour modification during the incident as observed during Rialto’s institutionalised camera use.
“The ‘preventative treatment’ of body-worn-video is the combination of the camera plus both the warning and cognition of the fact that the encounter is being filmed. In the tragic case of Eric Garner, police weren’t aware of the camera and didn’t have to tell the suspect that he, and therefore they, were being filmed,” said Dr Barak Ariel, from the Cambridge’s IoC, who conducted the crime experiment with Cambridge colleague Dr Alex Sutherland and Rialto police chief Tony Farrar.
“With institutionalised body-worn-camera use, an officer is obliged to issue a warning from the start… In Rialto, police use-of-force was 2.5 times higher before the cameras were introduced.
The idea behind body-worn-video, in which small high-definition cameras are strapped to a police officers’ torso or hat, is that every step of every police-public interaction — from the mundane to those involving deadly force — gets recorded to capture the closest approximation of actual events for evidence purposes, with only case-relevant data being stored.
In Rialto, an experimental model was defined in which all police shifts over the couyear were randomly assigned to be either experimental (with camera) or control … encompassing over 50,000 hours of police-public interactions.
…
Ariel and colleagues are currently replicating the Rialto experiment with over 30 forces across the world… Early signs match the Rialto success, showing that body-worn-cameras do appear to have significant positive impact on interactions between officers and civilians.
However, the researchers caution that more research is required, and urge police forces considering implementing body-worn-cameras to contact them for guidance…
Body-worn cameras appear to be highly cost-effective: analysis from Rialto showed every dollar spent on the technology saved about four dollars on complaints litigations. However, with technology becoming ever cheaper, the sheer levels of data storage has the potential to become crippling.
“The velocity and volume of data accumulating in police departments — even if only a fraction of recorded events turn into ‘downloadable’ recordings for evidentiary purposes — will exponentially grow over time,” said Ariel. “User licenses, storage space, ‘security costs’, maintenance and system upgrades can potentially translate into billions of dollars worldwide.”
…
“Body-worn-video has the potential to improve police legitimacy and enhance democracy, not least by calming situations on the front line of policing to prevent the pain and damage caused by unnecessary escalations of volatile situations. But there are substantial effects of body-worn-video that can potentially offset the benefits which future research needs to explore
END QUOTE
Sent from my iPad