Cops and Cameras
adapted from an article by Martin Kaste

1 Body-worn video cameras are quickly becoming standard-issue for American police, especially at departments in the process of reform. And in New Orleans, the troubled police department is now requiring almost all officers to wear the cameras. It has a dark history of corruption, racism and brutality. The low point may have been the Danziger Bridge episode, after Hurricane Katrina, when police shot unarmed people, then covered up the crime. The introduction of the cameras demonstrates the department's spirit of transparency. "They can help us have that unvarnished re-creation of what happened," New Orleans' superintendent of police Ronal Serpas says.

2 But what happens if an officer stops recording - say, right before someone gets roughed up? The chief says that kind of "selective recording" won't be tolerated. The department's body camera rules do not spell out the penalty for failing to record, though Serpas says a cop can be fired for being untruthful.

3 In the long run, the bigger problem may be a question of   29  : Ursula Price works for the Independent Police Monitor, the office that investigates potential cases of police misconduct. When Price first called the department to ask for a body camera video, she had high hopes. She was looking for footage of an arrest in which the suspect was bitten repeatedly by a police dog. When she asked for camera footage, an officer quickly told her that there wasn't any - and when she asked why, he said he didn't know. Later, he told Price that there is video, after all. But it took 2½ weeks for her to see it. She says the whole system for finding out what videos the police have is clunky. "There have been some problems dealing with getting permission to view things that are public records and people having to sue, and judgments against the department, and fines and fees and such for not following the public records rules."

4 Sam Walker, emeritus professor of criminal justice at the University of Nebraska, Omaha, is an expert on police accountability; he talks to chiefs all the time. "I've really been struck by the extent to which people just assume this is the coming thing," he says. Cameras are especially appealing to troubled police departments that are under federal scrutiny. Video lets a department signal its devotion to openness - but for that to mean something, it can't look as if the videos are just for the benefit of the police.  31  , New Orleans has decided to let officers watch their own videos before writing reports; Walker says that's not a good idea. "If an officer is planning to lie, video is a good guide to what kind of lie he can get away with. And that could feed into a public perception that the right to view the videos is a police privilege."

5 In New Orleans, Lt. Travis St. Pierre is demonstrating the new technology to random citizens. He introduces himself to one pedestrian, who immediately asks, "What's wrong?" You can't blame the guy for being a little freaked out. St. Pierre's camera fits over his ear, and the effect is sort of Robocop-y. St. Pierre trains other cops on the cameras, and they've told him that the body cameras are changing behavior - on the part of the public. "They always have this one individual that likes to be disruptive, curse at the police, fight with the police, and when they got out and turned the camera on and informed her she was being recorded, she immediately said, 'Ah. OK,' and was not a problem at all. We're seeing a lot of that kind of stuff," St. Pierre says. It'll be interesting to see who ends up changing their behavior more in New Orleans - the police, or the people their cameras are pointing at.

npr.org, 2014

Risk and Opportunity for Women in Science
based on an article by KATRIN BENNHOLD

1. The quiet revolution that has seen women across the world catch up with men in the work force and in education has also touched science, that most stubbornly male bastion. In 2009, three women received Nobel prizes in the sciences, a record. Women now earn 42 percent of the science degrees in the 30 countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (O.E.C.D.); in the life sciences, such as biology and medicine, more than 6 out of 10 graduates are women. Younger women, too, are sticking more with science after graduating. In the European Union, the number of women researchers is growing at a rate nearly twice that of their male counterparts.

2. But if progress has been dramatic since the two-time Nobel physicist Marie Curie was barred from France’s science academy a century ago, it has been slower than in other parts of society – and much less uniform. The number of women who are full science professors at elite universities in the United States has been stuck at 10 percent for the past half century. Throughout the world, only a handful of women preside over a national science academy. Women have been awarded only 16 of the 540 Nobels in science. They get more degrees and score higher grades than men in industrialized countries, but they are still paid less and are more likely to work part time. And the big money in science these days is in computers and engineering – the two fields with the fewest women.

3. Science, in effect, will be the last frontier for the women’s movement. With humanity ready to tackle pressing challenges – from climate change to complex illness to the fallout from the digital revolution – shortages of people with the right qualifications are becoming apparent in many countries. Therein lie both opportunity and risk for women: In the years to come, the people who master the sciences will change the world – and most likely command the big paychecks.

4. Many obstacles women face in general are starkly crystallized in the scientific and technological professions. Balancing a career with family is particularly tricky when the career clock competes with the biological clock or an engineering post requires working long periods on an offshore oil rig.

5. And stereotypes run deep. Blanca Trevino is a Mexican computer scientist and chief executive officer of Softtek, the largest private information-technology service provider in Latin America. She recalls that a kindergarten teacher would call her to complain about her daughter, who was playing with a calculator instead of with dolls. “The lady told me that my daughter was making up stories, saying that her mother had an office and an assistant,” Ms. Trevino said. “The idea that this could be true did not occur to her.”

6. Recently, however, two shifts have begun to focus the thinking of politicians and companies. The number of science and technology graduates from countries like China and India is rising just as the economic balance of power is shifting eastward. The West,  16  , suffers from shortages of engineers and other highly qualified labor. By 2017, a shortfall of 200,000 engineers is expected in Germany, and in Britain more than half a million skilled workers will be needed to satisfy the demands of the green energy, aerospace and transport industries. In conclusion, everything is in place for more women to succeed and become leaders in science.

The New York Times, 2010