Effects Of Body-worn Cameras Research Articles

The Effects of Body-Worn Cameras on Police Efficiency: A Study of Local Police Agencies in the United States

Research on body-worn cameras (BWCs) has burgeoned in recent years. However, much of this research has not examined the effects of this technology on police performance. In this study, we created a novel dataset on police organizational inputs and outputs and assessed the effects that BWCs have on police efficiency. Using a multiple-stage approach, in the first stage, we estimated the efficiency of local police agencies using a robust order- m efficiency model. In the second stage, we assessed the effects of BWCs using a range of matching estimators and an instrumental variable (IV) model. The first-stage results show that police agencies could improve their efficiency by 2% (from a mean efficiency score of 0.98 to 1). The second-stage matching and IV estimates suggest BWC effects on efficiency range between four and six percentage points in our preferred model. The introduction of this significant technological advance has brought many benefits to police agencies. Our findings show that BWCs can help improve police efficiency, yielding significant cost savings to law enforcement.

The effects of differential timing in the adoption of BWCs on civilian complaints

PurposeThe study examined the effects of body-worn cameras (BWCs) on civilian complaints against police using a non-representative national sample of police organizations.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical approach employed a staggered difference in differences design (DiD) that exploited the variation in the timing of adoption of BWCs by police agencies from 2007 to 2016. The study considered two scenarios: (1) a model without any explanatory variables; and (2) a model with explanatory variables. Furthermore, in each model the author two different comparison groups: (1) agencies that never adopted this technology and (2) agencies that adopted BWCs at a later time.FindingsThe model without explanatory variables suggest strong and statistically significant reductions in complaints. The simple average estimates show reductions in civilian complaints between 13% and 14%, depending on the model. This is the equivalent of an average reduction of about 30 civilian complaints per capita. The dynamic effects suggested that the length of exposure to BWCs matters in reducing civilian complaints, showing a significant reduction of 47% in civilian complaints. The models with explanatory variables also show slightly lower declines in civilian complaints.Originality/valueThe surge in the adoption of BWCs by police agencies sparked a parallel surge of studies examining their effectiveness on various outcomes. Most research to date has use experimental designs on a single police agency or a small group of agencies. Few studies have employed a large sample of agencies or periods longer than six to 12 months. Evidence on the effects of BWCs on a range of outcomes from larger multi-agency studies and longer periods of analysis will support the already robust specialized literature and inform policymakers about the effectiveness of this technology over time.

The Effects of Body-Worn Cameras on Self-Initiated Police Encounters

Beginning in the summer of 2014, a series of controversial deaths in the US, often involving white officers and unarmed minority men, contributed to the growing debate about the need for increased transparency and accountability in policing. Central to the debate has been the call for more body-worn cameras (BWCs), a widely adopted technology that promises numerous benefits through real-time recording of police-public encounters. However, critics of this technology claim that increased surveillance of their behavior may lead to de-policing where officers choose to reduce the quality and/or quantity of their self-initiated police work. This claim has recently received empirical scrutiny in the context of the two main self-initiated activities underlying police work: foot patrols and traffic stops. However, the studies have mainly been outcome-orientated (e.g., stop and frisk or issuance of a citation) rather than activity-focused. The de-policing claim is tested here using data from a lengthy, quasi-experimental evaluation of BWCs in a large US police department. The findings show that the number of foot patrols and traffic stops conducted did not vary based on whether an officer wore a BWC or not. Policy and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.

What evidence supports the use of Body Worn Cameras in mental health inpatient wards? A systematic review and narrative synthesis of the effects of Body Worn Cameras in public sector services.

Body‐Worn‐Cameras (BWCs) are being introduced into Mental Health Inpatient Units. At present, minimal evidence surrounding their use in a mental health environment exists. This review examined research on the uses of BWCs in public sector services including healthcare, public transportation, and law enforcement. All eligible studies included a visible BWC, recording on a continuous loop as the main intervention. The evidence base presented high levels of bias, highly varied camera protocols, and heterogeneity of outcome measurements. This review found there is limited evidence for the efficacy of BWCs to control and manage violence within mental health inpatient wards. The technology has shown to be effective in reducing the number of public complaints in a law enforcement setting, but it is unclear how this is achieved. It appears there may be potential beneficial uses and unintended consequences of BWCs yet to be explored by mental health services.

Do Body-Worn Cameras Change Law Enforcement Arrest Behavior? A National Study of Local Police Departments

Controlling police officers’ discretionary behavior during public encounters has been an important issue in U.S. policing, especially following several high-profile police-involved deaths of racial minorities. In response, body-worn cameras (BWCs) were introduced to enhance police accountability by providing police managers an opportunity to monitor police–public encounters. Although many U.S. local police departments have now implemented BWC programs, evidence of program effects on daily police behavior has been limited. This study therefore focuses on whether officers’ arrest behavior changes when they perceive that BWCs are recording their interactions with the public. By conducting a difference-in-differences analysis using 142 police departments, I found that BWCs have negative and small treatment effects on arrest rates and null effects on the racial disparity between numbers of Black and White arrests. These findings imply that officers may become slightly more cautious in the use of arrests after wearing BWCs, but BWCs do not change their overall disparate treatment of Black versus White suspects. The results further indicate that the effects of BWCs on arrests are prominent in municipalities with high crime rates or a high proportion of non-White residents, which suggests that BWC programs demonstrate different effects according to the characteristics of communities served.

Erratum to: The Effects of Body-Worn Cameras on Violent Police Victimization

Erratum to: The Effects of Body-Worn Cameras on Violent Police Victimization

The Effects of Body-Worn Cameras on Violent Police Victimization

AbstractBody-worn cameras (BWCs) have been presented as a technological innovation to cultivate greater civility in police–citizen interactions. Attempts have been made to clarify the impact of BWCs upon various policing outcomes, but the effects of BWCs on assaults against police has received scant research attention. Existing studies have been limited to a handful of jurisdictions with limited generalizability to a broader range of police organizations. Combining a number of official data sets for the years 2011–13, the current study assesses the relationship between BWCs and police victimization by focusing on total assaults and firearm assaults against police officers in a sample of 516 police agencies. The results indicate that BWC usage is negatively associated with police victimization in both models. This suggests that BWCs can assist in preventing the occurrence of general and extreme violence against police in a wide range of law enforcement agencies in varied settings.

The Effects of Body-Worn Cameras on Police Efficiency: A Study of Local Police Agencies in the US

Do Body-Worn Cameras improve police efficiency? This study answers this question in the context of a sample of local police agencies in the US, where the adoption of BWCs by police agencies has increased significantly in recent years. To estimate the effects of BWCs on police efficiency, I exploited the differences in the adoption of BWCs between agencies that acquired them (acquirers) and agencies that deployed them (deployers). Using a multiple stage approach, in the first stage, I estimated the efficiency of local police agencies using a robust order-m model. In the second stage, I estimated the effects of BWCs using a range of matching estimators and an instrumental variable model. The first stage results show that police agencies could improve their efficiency by 31 percent from 0.76 to 1. The second stage matching and IV estimates suggest that BWCs can help improve police efficiency between eight and 21 percentage points. The effects are larger for those agencies that fully deployed BWCs with their officers. Overall, this study’s results support the argument that BWCs can help improve police efficiency

The effects of body-worn cameras on police-citizen encounters and police activity: evaluation of a pilot implementation in Philadelphia, PA

Examine changes in officer behavior, when wearing body-worn cameras, as revealed by pedestrian stops, vehicle stops, arrests, use of force, and citizen complaints during a pilot implementation in a racially diverse jurisdiction in the Northeast region of the USA. A quasi-experimental approach was used to examine the initial implementation of body-worn cameras (BWCs) in one district. This provided the opportunity for a natural experiment comparing officers in the district that deployed cameras with officers in three similar districts where no BWCs were deployed. Propensity score matching (PSM) was used to match BWC officers with non-BWC officers. BWC officers had about 38.3% fewer use of force incidents than non-BWC officers with similar numbers of use of force incidents in the previous year. On average, BWC officers made 46.4% fewer pedestrian stops and 39.2% fewer arrests than non-BWC officers. Vehicle stops and citizen complaints had nonsignificant declines for BWC officers. The reductions in proactive policing by officers are consistent with a deterrence-based view that officers respond to the increased scrutiny by curtailing interactions with citizens, which in turn, limits the potential for conflict and for police supervisors to identify behavior worthy of disciplinary action. The lack of a significant reduction in citizen complaints supports the view that the effect of BWCs on negative officer behavior is contingent upon other factors in the settings in which cameras are deployed. Future research should examine the impacts of cameras on the narrowing of police discretion because of the important implications for police–community relations.

The Power of Observation: An Empirical Analysis of the Effects of Body Worn Cameras on Police Use of Force and Productivity

Controversial police use-of-force incidents have eroded police legitimacy, and body-worn cameras (BWCs) have received extensive attention as a key reform. I study the causal effects of BWCs on the use of force and law enforcement outcomes. Previous studies that randomized BWC deployment at the officer level within a single agency faced empirical challenges as (1) the control group officers are also indirectly affected by BWCs due to interactions with the treatment group officers (spillover), (2) there may be fundamental differences between agencies that agree to be researched and agencies that do not (site-selection bias), and (3) researchers could not directly examine agency-wide variables such as crime rates and public opinion. I overcome these limitations by conducting the first nationwide study of BWCs across more than 1,000 agencies in the US. I find that BWCs lead to substantial decreases in the use of force, both against whites and minorities. Nationwide, they reduce police-involved homicides by 58%. In contrast to previous studies on police accountability, I find no evidence of an association between police oversight through BWCs and reduction in policing efforts. By examining social media usage from Twitter, I find that BWC adoption has improved public opinion toward the police. These findings imply that BWCs can be an important tool for improving police accountability without sacrificing policing capabilities.

Measuring the Direct and Spillover Effects of Body Worn Cameras on the Civility of Police–Citizen Encounters and Police Work Activities

Existing research on the effects of body-worn cameras (BWCs) have found largely consistent results regarding direct significant reductions in citizen complaints and often also report reductions in use of force reports. However, few studies have examined possible spillover effects onto untreated officers. This study explicitly tests for direct and spillover effects of BWCs on the civility of police-citizen encounters and police work activities. This study assesses the direct effects of BWCs on citizen complaints, police use of force, and police proactivity and discretion during a 1-year randomized controlled trial in the Boston Police Department. Through a simultaneous quasi-experimental design, this study also investigates whether BWC deployment results in spillover effects onto control officers in treated districts as compared to comparison officers in untreated districts. Findings indicate that the use of BWCs reduces citizen complaints and police use of force but has no appreciable impact on officer activity or discretion. Furthermore, results indicate significant spillover reductions in citizen complaints for control officers in treated districts. The results of this study suggest that a limited BWC adoption may generate spillover deterrent impacts as officers and citizens perceive an increased threat that inappropriate and illegal behaviors will be captured on video even when BWCs are not actually present during an encounter. Partial BWC implementation seems like a cost-effective alternative to full implementation. However, police executives and policy makers need to think carefully about possible negative externalities generated by uneven BWC coverage.

The effects of body-worn cameras (BWCs) on police and citizen outcomes

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to review the extant of the published literature on body-worn cameras (BWCs) in policing, specifically in the context of how BWCs affect both citizens and officers.Design/methodology/approachThe current study is a narrative review of the impact of BWCs on police and citizens generated through a search of four repositories (Google Scholar, Criminal Justice s, EBSCO Host, PsychInfo).FindingsThe current narrative review identified 21 articles that matched the selection criteria. In general, this body of research demonstrates that: the police are supportive of BWC adoption; the evidence from BWC evaluations suggests that the use of BWCs can have benefits for police-public encounters.Practical implicationsThe practical implications derived from this narrative review suggest police administrators that the adoption and effective implementation of BWCs are one mechanism that can strengthen police-community relationships and decrease police misconduct through enhanced legitimacy and accountability.Originality/valueThis study is useful for researchers who wish to further examine BWC issues in policing, for police managers/administrators who are currently utilizing BWC technology, and for those who are considering adopting BWC technology.

Testing the effects of police body-worn cameras on use of force during arrests: A randomised controlled trial in a large British police force:

This study aims to assess the effect of body-worn cameras (BWCs) on police use of force, in a British police force context. We tested the effect of BWCs with a large British force in a six-month ra...