I bet it would be a lot less common if evidence that it happened meant the end of the officer’s career, loss of pension, and 10 years in prison (general population, preferably with a public announcement of why they are serving time).
On top of that, they could add some sort of chain of custody for the accused. For instance gaps in the recording between arrest and trial (solo bathroom breaks and conferring with defense attorneys excepted) could mean the charges are dropped.
If it's hard to obtain or provide evidence, increasing the consequences isn't goint to be a deterrent. You have to make it easier to prove. Which means you either need to:
* Lower the standard for proof
* Make it harder to to avoid public scrutiny for covered interactions
Hold up, who said anything about merely increasing the punishment for already-illegal acts?
It's a significant difference when those acts become impractical, because you can't spout all the other smaller lies which are needed to shock and scare the victim into a state where they'll fall for the big ones.
If you can spout the big lies you can spout the small lies. The size of the lie has no impact. Preventing the lies in the first place regardless of size requires that you can
