Police Body-worn Cameras Research Articles

Is It Just Dumb Luck? The Challenge of Getting Access to Public Records Related to Smart City Technology

Many state and local governments have begun to rely heavily on Smart City technologies, including license plate readers, gun-shot detection equipment, wastewater monitoring tools, and more. But the public often has little oversight with regard to their purchase, installation, and use. We analyze public records laws and relevant case law to examine whether the laws provide access to records about, and produced by, Smart City technologies. Even in states that broadly define “public record,” officials regularly rely on exemptions—often citing law enforcement or privacy concerns—to deny access. Further, many Smart City technologies have not been addressed by the legislatures and courts, but legislation and litigation involving two technologies (police body-worn cameras and police dash cameras) have advanced—offering some optimism.

경찰 바디캠에 대한 지각된 용이성과 지각된 유용성 탐색 연구

This study aims at investigating key factors that are associated with behavioral intention to use police body-worn camera. In particular, this study focuses on examining perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of police body-worn camera by conducting interviews toward nine police officers in South Korea. The applications of police body-worn camera has dramatically increased since 112 police hot-line report system was regarded as significant tool of enforcing law in the community. Few researches have been conducted to identify the relevant factors that are related the perception of police in terms of their perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness for the body-worn camera. This present study used qualitative research method which is based on grounded theory and attempted to focus on exploring perception of police body-worn camera by emphasizing key factors of the perception. Besides, this study conducted in-depth interviews toward nine police officers by utilizing the framework of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). Results showed that intention to use the body-worn camera was so prevalent that police think that the body-worn camera can be widely applied to the other criminal justice sectors. In this context, it is necessary to consider the new ways of improving high effectiveness body-worn camera. More importantly, perceived ease of use was more likely to be associated with the objective level of effectiveness of body-worn camera, while perceived usefulness of police was more prone to be related to psychological self-defense mechanism of police officers. Further policy implications will be discussed.

경찰의 바디캠 사용에 대한 연구: 시민 폭언 및 공정한 법집행과의 관계를 중심으로

In South Korea, the use of police body-worn cameras has become widespread, but research on this topic still needs to be conducted. This study empirically examined the impact of negative interactions with citizens on support for police body-worn camera usage and perceptions of procedural justice policing. This study collected data by distributing a survey to 172 trainees at the National Police Human Resources Development Institute. The results showed a significant positive (+) relationship between citizen animus and support for body-worn camera usage. However, citizen animus and support for body camera usage did not significantly impact perceptions of procedural justice policing. Finally, the relationship between citizen animus and procedural justice policing, mediated by support for body camera usage, was not statistically significant. Based on these findings, the study discussed ways to verify the expected effects of body-worn cameras.

An Officer-Level Examination of the Prevalence and Correlates of Police Body-Worn Camera Activation

Body-worn cameras (BWCs) are intended to promote transparency and accountability. However, officer failure to activate BWCs remains a concern. Research has identified types of incidents associated with activation failure, but has not examined activation as a measure of performance. We examine BWC activation as an officer-level decision-making process, assessing the influence of demographics, assignments, and performance (e.g., proactivity) on activation rates over time. Negative binominal and multinomial logistic regression were used to analyze data from 149 officers assigned to wear BWCs during a randomized-controlled trial. Activation rates ranged from 0–88% of calls-for-service. Group-based trajectory modeling identified three activation trends: decreased, increased then decreased, and increased and tapered off. Limited relationships between officer-level predictors and activation were identified. Findings suggest officer characteristics and performance are not primary drivers of BWC activation. Departments should use supervision, retraining, and policy intervention to ensure BWCs are implemented as intended.

Automation and Artificial Intelligence in Police Body-Worn Cameras: Experimental Evidence of Impact on Perceptions of Fairness Among Officers

Automation and Artificial Intelligence in Police Body-Worn Cameras: Experimental Evidence of Impact on Perceptions of Fairness Among Officers

Tracking procedural justice in stop and search pedestrian encounters with police body-camera records

Abstract Procedural justice has emerged as a crucial dimension of fairness in policing. It encompasses the extent to which police officers listen to citizens, show care for the well-being of citizens, act with neutrality, and show respect to them. These matters arise during police-citizen interactions, such as police stop and search of citizens. In this study, we draw on a random sample of 150 stop-and-search encounters recorded on police body-worn cameras in a police force in England (UK) to assess police adherence to procedural justice principles. The analysis shows high ratings on voice, neutrality, and respect but relatively low score on trustworthy motives. We found evidence of procedural justice variability across police jurisdictions. However, there was no evidence of an association between procedural justice and outcomes of stop-and-search interactions. The implications of the findings are discussed.

Write Before You Watch: Policies for Police Body-worn Cameras That Advance Accountability and Accuracy

Write Before You Watch: Policies for Police Body-worn Cameras That Advance Accountability and Accuracy

“A FRAIL LITTLE THING, BUT SHE’S WILEY”: POLICE BRUTALITY MEETS DEMENTIA: A NARRATIVE INQUIRY

Abstract From 2000 to 2020 overall arrests in the U.S. declined, but arrests of people 65 and older increased by nearly 30 percent. In addition, between 2010 and 2020 approximately 12,000 adults 65 and older were admitted to the emergency room due to injuries sustained during encounters with police or private security. To illuminate the scope of negative consequences that may occur during such encounters, the present study examined the 2020 arrest of a 73-year-old community-dwelling woman living with dementia who walked out of a big-box store with $13.88 worth of merchandise she did not pay for. During her arrest, she sustained multiple injuries at the hands of two officers, including a dislocated shoulder and a broken arm. Despite her injuries, she did not receive medical care for six hours while in custody. The methodological approach to this case draws on elements of interpretative phenomenological analysis, and narrative analysis to explore publicly available archival data sources, including surveillance and police body-worn camera footage. Supporting data sources include police filings at the time of her arrest and legal filings by a civil rights attorney representing the woman’s family. The analysis demonstrated that deeply entrenched ageism, failure to recognize the signs of dementia, and the systemic normalization and defense of police use of force against non-normative behavior when interacting with neuro diverse older adults. This has critical implications for family caregivers and trusted others who struggle to balance the dialectic between safety and independence for people aging in place with dementia

Police body-worn cameras and privacy: Views and concerns of officers and citizens

Police body-worn cameras (BWC) have been lauded for their potential to increase transparency and accountability by documenting officers’ actions and interactions with citizens. However, despite their widespread use in recent years, several law enforcement agencies have been hesitant to adopt this technology because of privacy concerns. This article explores the views of police officers and citizens from the Canadian province of Quebec towards the use of BWCs. Specifically, it seeks to: (a) understand how officers feel about being monitored by BWCs and (b) assess citizens’ privacy concerns towards police BWCs. A mixed-method research design was used, including interviews and focus groups with 78 police officers, including 46 officers from four pilot sites, and a telephone survey of 1609 residents from the same sites. The results show that officers are concerned about the potential effects of BWCs on their privacy and the privacy of the public. One major area of concern is the impact it may have on their work performance and the use of adaptative measures that support them in carrying out challenging duties. By contrast, most citizens have no reservations about being recorded by a BWC. Certain individual characteristics—such as age and perceptions of the police—however, were associated with heightened privacy concerns. Without neglecting citizens’ privacy, this study provides insights into the development of BWC policies that preserve officers’ right to privacy and ability to fulfill their duty.

Decision to adopt body-worn cameras in small and rural Pennsylvania police departments

PurposeInternationally publicized cases of police violence against unarmed black men have led to calls for accountability in policing. Increased footage of police–public interactions, specifically through the form of police body-worn cameras (BWCs), is encouraged and considered an innovation that can improve the policing profession. However, BWC adoption is likely more feasible in big city departments than in small and rural departments, who respond to many of the same issues as their larger counterparts. The purpose of this study is to explore perceptions of BWC among leaders of small and rural police departments.Design/methodology/approachUsing a mixed methods approach, the authors surveyed 349 chiefs of small and rural Pennsylvania police departments and conducted qualitative follow-up interviews with 53 chiefs.FindingsThe results indicate that both adopters and non-adopters esteem BWC in a positive light, particularly toward the ability to improve professionalism and police–community relations. Other findings and implications of these results will be discussed.Originality/valueThis study focuses on small and rural police departments, which make up the majority of police departments but are often understudied.

Police Body-Worn Cameras as a Response to Domestic and Family Violence: Practitioner Insights Into the Consequences for Victim/Survivors.

Body-worn cameras (BWCs) have been promoted internationally to enhance responses to domestic and family violence (DFV). However, little is known about their utility, benefits, and limitations. Drawing upon the insights of DFV practitioners who support victim/survivors in the Australian states of Queensland and Western Australia, this article finds that while BWCs can capture some DFV incidents, they are unable to show their full context and impacts. BWC footage may also have consequences for "nonideal" victim/survivors, including wrongful criminalization and the removal of children. Ultimately, we argue that trauma-informed responses are vital for BWC use in DFV cases to improve frontline responses.

Painting the narrative: Police body-worn cameras, report writing, and the techno-regulation of policework

Police body-worn cameras (BWCs) have emerged in response to calls for greater police transparency and accountability. Leveraged as techno-regulatory tools with the potential to influence officer behavior, BWCs may also afford officers opportunities to review video footage prior to writing incident reports, which has implications for how police-public interactions are documented in official records. In this study of BWC adoption by a police agency in the United States, we examine how officers’ ideological perspectives on BWCs, technological limitations, and policy-related concerns influenced their decisions about whether and how to review video as part of their report writing practice. In conclusion, we argue that police practitioners and policy-makers should provide clearer policy guidance to officers about how BWC footage should be used in the report writing process and that police administrators, policy-makers, and researchers should directly consider the role that technology might play in regulating officer behavior, even in unintended ways.

Escalated police stops of Black men are linguistically and psychologically distinct in their earliest moments

Across the United States, police chiefs, city officials, and community leaders alike have highlighted the need to de-escalate police encounters with the public. This concern about escalation extends from encounters involving use of force to routine car stops, where Black drivers are disproportionately pulled over. Yet, despite the calls for action, we know little about the trajectory of police stops or how escalation unfolds. In study 1, we use methods from computational linguistics to analyze police body-worn camera footage from 577 stops of Black drivers. We find that stops with escalated outcomes (those ending in arrest, handcuffing, or a search) diverge from stops without these outcomes in their earliest moments-even in the first 45 words spoken by the officer. In stops that result in escalation, officers are more likely to issue commands as their opening words to the driver and less likely to tell drivers the reason why they are being stopped. In study 2, we expose Black males to audio clips of the same stops and find differences in how escalated stops are perceived: Participants report more negative emotion, appraise officers more negatively, worry about force being used, and predict worse outcomes after hearing only the officer's initial words in escalated versus non-escalated stops. Our findings show that car stops that end in escalated outcomes sometimes begin in an escalated fashion, with adverse effects for Black male drivers and, in turn, police-community relations.

The price tag of police body-worn cameras: officers’ and citizens’ perceptions about costs

ABSTRACT Research shows that both police officers and the public consistently express support for body-worn cameras (BWCs). The cost of increasing police transparency and accountability, however, is often overlooked. As many agencies have been deterred by their high price, BWCs may not always be cost-effective. Citizens have also rarely been surveyed on BWCs’ financial implications, suggesting their support may have been miscalculated. Considering the calls for reducing police budgets, it seems important to question whether BWCs are an appropriate use of public money. This article investigates how financial implications influence support for BWCs. It first explores how officers perceive the financial implications of using BWCs through interviews and focus groups. Then, it examines public support for BWCs, as revealed in experimental phone surveys. Results indicate that officers are generally sceptical about the public value of BWCs. While citizens showed a high endorsement for BWCs, their support dropped when reminded it could lead to cutbacks in social programmes.

Video Data Analysis and Police Body-Worn Camera Footage

Video data analysis (VDA) represents an important methodological framework for contemporary research approaches to the myriad of footage available from cameras, devices, and phones. Footage from police body-worn cameras (BWCs) is anticipated to be a widely available platform for social science researchers to scrutinize the interactions between police and citizens. We examine issues of validity and reliability as related to BWCs in the context of VDA, based on an assessment of the quality of audio and video obtained from that platform. Second, we compare the coding of BWC footage obtained from a sample of police-citizen encounters to coding of the same events by on-scene coders using an instrument adapted from in-person systematic social observations (SSOs). Findings show that there are substantial and systematic audio and video gaps present in BWC footage as a source of data for social science investigation that likely impact the reliability of measures. Despite these problems, BWC data have substantial capacity for judging sequential developments, causal ordering, and the duration of events. Thus, the technology should open theoretical frames that are too cumbersome for in-person observation. Theoretical development with VDA in mind is suggested as an important pathway for future researchers in terms of framing data collection from BWCs and also suggesting areas where triangulation is essential.

‘How can you capture what is hidden?’ Police body-worn cameras and coercive control

In December 2015, the criminal offence of coercive control was introduced in England and Wales. Occurring at a similar time was the increased widespread usage of police body-worn cameras (BWCs) in domestic abuse cases, with many UK based police forces and international jurisdictions, such as Australia and the US, encouraging their mandatory usage. Using empirical data gathered in one police force area in the south of England, this article examines the extent to which coercive control is able to be captured by BWCs, exploring police officer and victim/survivor perceptions and experiences. The findings highlight concerns with the extent to which BWCs are able to capture the hidden nature of coercive control and the ways in which the footage could have unintended consequences for victim/survivors, particularly minoritised women.

Police body-worn camera footage: Attitudes toward the public right to view and police communication

ABSTRACT The aim of this study is to learn more about the factors that influence citizen perceptions of the public right to view BWC footage of a critical incident as well as police communication afterwards. To accomplish this, we used a 2 × 2 vignette where citizen race and object were manipulated to different conditions. Using a survey instrument sent to Amazon Mturk workers, several notable findings related to demographic and media perceptions were found regarding the public’s right to view the footage. White respondents were more likely to believe that the public should be able to view the footage involving the Black suspect holding a cellphone, whereas White respondents were less likely to believe that the public should be able to view the footage involving a Black suspect holding a handgun. Age was positively related to supporting increased communication from police for the scenario with a Black suspect with a cellphone,among several other significant relationships. As media hostility increased, respondents were less likely to support increased communication from the police. Perceptions of media hostility consistently influenced respondent perceptions of the public’s right to view BWC footage and police communication across all manipulations.

Police Body-Worn Cameras and Structuration: A Silver-Plated Bullet and the Status Quo

Police Body-Worn Cameras and Structuration: A Silver-Plated Bullet and the Status Quo

Situational factors and police use of force across micro-time intervals: A video systematic social observation and panel regression analysis

The current study analyzes police use of force as a series of time-bound transactions between officers, civilians, and bystanders. The research begins with a systematic social observation of use of force events recorded on police body-worn cameras in Newark, NJ. Researchers measure the occurrence and time stamps for numerous participant physical and verbal behaviors. Data are converted into a longitudinal panel format measuring all observed behaviors in five-second intervals. Panel logistic regression models estimate the effect of each behavior on use of force in immediate and subsequent temporal periods. Findings indicate certain variables influence use of force at a distinct point in time whereas others exert influence on use of force across multiple time periods. The most influential variables relate to authority maintenance theoretical constructs. This finding supports prior perspectives arguing that police use of force largely results from officer attempts to maintain constant authority over civilians during face-to-face encounters. Nonetheless, a range of additional variables reflecting procedural justice, civilian resistance, and bystander presence significantly affect when police use force during civilian encounters. Results provide nuance to theoretical frameworks considering use of force as resulting from the interplay between officer and civilian actions and reactions.

Testing the Evidentiary Value of Police Body-Worn Cameras in Misdemeanor Court

We test whether the presence of police body-worn camera (BWC) evidence impacts case filing, processing, and outcomes, using data from over 50,000 misdemeanor cases charged in the Tempe, Arizona municipal city court (2014–2017). BWCs did not affect case flow but did affect processing and outcomes for most cases. Traffic and drug/alcohol cases involving a BWC were processed more quickly, while traffic and person offense cases with a BWC were less likely to be adjudicated guilty. Defendant and officer demographics were correlated with case processing time and outcomes, but BWCs did not reduce racial/ethnic disparities for any outcomes. BWCs appear to affect case processing and outcomes for some case types, but effects are not straightforward and warrant further research.