It may be that in some places it’s a bad idea to use body-worn cameras, and the only way you can find that out is to keep doing these tests in different kinds of places.
- Barak Ariel
The latest findings, from one of the largest randomised-controlled trials in criminal justice research, highlight the need for cameras to be kept on and recording at all stages of police-public interaction – not just when an individual officer deems it necessary – if police use-of-force and assaults against police are to be reduced.
New evidence from the largest-yet series of experiments on use of body-worn cameras by police has revealed that rates of assault against police by members of the public actually increased when officers wore the cameras.
The research also found that on average across all officer-hours studied, and contrary to current thinking, the rate of use-of-force by police on citizens was unchanged by the presence of body-worn cameras, but a deeper analysis of the data showed that this finding varied depending on whether or not officers chose when to turn cameras on.
If officers turned cameras on and off during their shift then use-of-force increased, whereas if they kept the cameras rolling for their whole shift, use-of-force decreased.
The findings are released across two articles published in the European Journal of Criminology and the Journal of Experimental Criminology.
While researchers describe these findings as unexpected, they also urge caution as the work is ongoing, and say these early results demand further scrutiny. However, gathering evidence for what works in policing is vital, they say.
“At present, there is a worldwide uncontrolled social experiment taking place – underpinned by feverish public debate and billions of dollars of government expenditure. Robust evidence is only just keeping pace with the adoption of new technology,” write criminologists from the University of Cambridge and RAND Europe, who conducted the study.
For the latest findings, researchers worked with eight police forces across the UK and US – including West Midlands, Cambridgeshire and Northern Ireland’s PSNI, as well as Ventura, California and Rialto, California PDs in the United States – to conduct ten randomised-controlled trials.
Over the ten trials, the research team found that rates of assault against officers wearing cameras on their shift were an average of 15% higher, compared to shifts without cameras.
The researchers say this could be due to officers feeling more able to report assaults once they are captured on camera – providing them the impetus and/or confidence to do so.
The monitoring by camera also may make officers less assertive and more vulnerable to assault. However, they point out these are just possible explanations, and much more work is needed to unpick the reasons behind these surprising findings.
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Image:Body cameras of the Albanian police
Credit: Ministria e Puneve te Brendshm
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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