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The Effect of Police Body-Worn Cameras on Use of Force and Citizens' Complaints Against the Police: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Journal of quantitative criminology, 2015-09, Vol.31 (3), p.509-535 [Peer Reviewed Journal]

Springer Science+Business Media 2015 ;Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014 ;Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015 ;ISSN: 0748-4518 ;EISSN: 1573-7799 ;DOI: 10.1007/s10940-014-9236-3 ;CODEN: JQCRE6

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  • Title:
    The Effect of Police Body-Worn Cameras on Use of Force and Citizens' Complaints Against the Police: A Randomized Controlled Trial
  • Author: Ariel, Barak ; Farrar, William A. ; Sutherland, Alex
  • Subjects: Camcorders ; Criminology ; Criminology and Criminal Justice ; Law and Criminology ; Law enforcement ; Methodology of the Social Sciences ; Original Paper ; Police brutality ; Sociology ; Statistics
  • Is Part Of: Journal of quantitative criminology, 2015-09, Vol.31 (3), p.509-535
  • Description: Objective: Police use-of-force continues to be a major source of international concern, inviting interest from academics and practitioners alike. Whether justified or unnecessary/excessive, the exercise of power by the police can potentially tarnish their relationship with the community. Police misconduct can translate into complaints against the police, which carry large economic and social costs. The question we try to answer is: do body-worncameras reduce the prevalence of use-of-force and/or citizens' complaints against the police? Methods: We empirically tested the use of body-worn-cameras by measuring the effect of videotaping police-public encounters on incidents of police use-of-force and complaints, in randomized-controlled settings. Over 12 months, we randomly-assigned officers to "experimental-shifts" during which they were equipped with body-worn HD cameras that recorded all contacts with the public and to "control-shifts" without the cameras (n = 988). We nominally defined use-of-force, both unnecessary/excessive and reasonable, as a non-desirable response in police-public encounters. We estimate the causal effect of the use of body-worn-videos on the two outcome variables using both between-group differences using a Poisson regression model as well as before-after estimates using interrupted time-series analyses. Results: We found that the likelihood of force being used in control conditions were roughly twice those in experimental conditions. Similarly, a pre/post analysis of use-of-force and complaints data also support this result: the number of complaints filed against officers dropped from 0.7 complaints per 1,000 contacts to 0.07 per 1,000 contacts. We discuss the findings in terms of theory, research methods, policy and future avenues of research on body-worn-videos.
  • Publisher: New York: Springer Science+Business Media
  • Language: English
  • Identifier: ISSN: 0748-4518
    EISSN: 1573-7799
    DOI: 10.1007/s10940-014-9236-3
    CODEN: JQCRE6
  • Source: ProQuest One Psychology
    ProQuest Central
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