Because everyone behaves better when they know they are being watched. In tests it reduced physical confrontations 60 percent and complaints about the police 88 percent. As Reason argues:
Although we generally take a dim view of the proliferation of surveillance cameras in American life, police on-body cameras are different because of their potential to serve as a check against the abuse of power by police officers. Historically, there was no documentary evidence of most encounters between police officers and the public, and due to the volatile nature of those encounters, this often resulted in radically divergent accounts of incidents. Cameras have the potential to be a win-win, helping protect the public against police misconduct, and at the same time helping protect police against false accusations of abuse.
Indeed.
http://reason.com/blog/2014/08/24/should-cops-wear-body-cameras-one-ex-cop
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