Name: William Fix Gilchrist, ENC 2135, Spring 2017

Research Proposal Assignment

This proposal will help you solidify your ideas for the semesters research. Your proposal should be
approximately two double spaced pages or about 500 words, and it should include the following
information. (See pages 292-294 of the BBG for an example of good answers to these questions.)

1. Your research question

Are Police Body cameras worth the effort and cost?

2. A working title for your project

Police Body Cameras: Perfecting Policing?

3. A summary of your project. Identify your topic and describe what you will be looking at in

terms of the topic. Include some key terms and additional questions that will guide your research.

With my topic, I will discuss the topic of Police and Law Enforcement body-worn cameras. The

main idea and focus for the paper will be to research and discuss the costs and benefits of Police body

cameras, and what their effects are negatively or positively, and how things have been changed with

their implementation. Some of the key points will be the monetary and physical cost of body cameras,

and whether this is worth the cost of using them in some places. Another major point is the benefits and

drawbacks of their use, including statistics of the public and police, and if the use of cameras lowers use

of force, complaints and injuries/deaths in the line of duty.

Another major point of research with police body cameras is the new movement and legal issues

against them. There are numerous laws and lawsuits that are preventing their use, causing them to

become more of an issue in certain situations. Some of these include filming in areas that have privacy

restrictions like hospitals and other areas which are considered private and are legally protected so.
4. A description of your purpose for working on this project. Why did you choose this topic? What

do you hope to learn from this project?

I chose this topic because it is very much related to where I can to go with a career and my

major. It is a goal of mine to eventually become a police officer or some figure in the criminal justice

system, so this topic is related to my future endeavors as well. The use of police body cameras has been

a topic of national conversation, and has been brought to light by other national events and movements. I

hope that with this project, I can learn a significant amount about body cameras and their usage, and to

hopefully learn what their future might be so I be more educated on the subject.

5. A discussion of the key challenges you will face or you imagine you will face. What concerns do

you have regarding the research/project?

One of the issues I may have with this project is writing objectively. The research topic is very

straight forward, however there is a large amount of data on the subject that must be analyzed to be used

effectively to research the topic. Another Issue with the project will most likely be the collection of data

and finding suitable sources, as most of the statistics are only published in a large array of places and

sources, from government websites and reports, to public newspapers and journals. After finding as

many strong sources as I can, it will be a matter of analyzing them to apply them to the topic and writing

about it.