Recommendation area ▸

Body Worn Cameras

The Problem ▸

The emergence of bystander videos of police actions has enabled the public to see officers responding and acting in the moment. In some cases, this has revealed objectionable behaviors of officers in highly publicized incidents over the last several decades. Some of these widely shared videos have shaken the confidence of many communities, particularly communities of color, who are disproportionately represented in these videos. Though such events are rare and do not represent most police encounters, the videos have led to demands for greater accountability. The latest available data indicates that nearly half of law enforcement agencies in the United States have acquired body-worn cameras. Among agencies that deployed their body-worn cameras, little is known about how footage is being used in accountability processes, including in training and supervision. The inability or failure to make use of body-worn camera footage proactively in supervision, training, and accountability reduces the potential for improving outcomes in police-community encounters and relations.

What We Know ▸

Council Recommendations ▸

Recommendation 10

Use Body-Worn Cameras and Conduct Research on Disparate Impact of Their Use and Outcomes

The use of body-worn cameras is needed to promote accountability, increase transparency, and improve police-community interactions, particularly in impoverished and minority communities and neighborhoods. Body-worn cameras should be used by officers in every law enforcement agency. Rigorous, peer-reviewed studies must be conducted to examine the impact of body-worn cameras on traffic stops, arrests, use of force, complaints against officers, policies concerning officer discretion (when recording is mandatory vs. voluntary), officer pro-activity, training, and community’s perceptions of law enforcement agency transparency, particularly with respect to racially disparate treatment and outcomes.

Recommendation 11

Engage the Community in Development of Body-Worn Camera Policies

To help promote a culture of transparency and accountability, law enforcement agencies should engage the community in the development and implementation of regulations, policies, and practices that govern the use of body-worn cameras, including protecting the privacy of the public and the storage of video footage.

Recommendation 12

Use Body-Worn Camera Videos for Investigations of Community Complaints and Officer Training

Video footage from body-worn cameras should be used to investigate community complaints of alleged officer misconduct and in training to help prevent misconduct and to support skills regarding procedural justice and de-escalation techniques. Periodic, random monitoring of routine interactions should be performed in a continuous learning framework to improve and highlight positive interactions.

Recommendation 13

Improve Technical Solutions to Challenges Created by Body-Worn Cameras  

Research is needed to improve technologies regarding body-worn camera data management, particularly the preservation of evidence and redaction of private information not suitable for public release.

Further Research ▸

Research the impacts of body-worn cameras and other aspects of police-community encounters that may reduce or protect against racial and ethnic disparities in treatment and outcomes

To test for bias or assess potential disparities in how community members are treated and policing outcomes, it is important to look beyond who is stopped or subject to force. Understanding who is not stopped or subject to use of force is also necessary if law enforcement agencies are to ensure that the treatment of community members does not disparately impact racial, ethnic, and other minority populations. Further, examining how officers engage with the public, the language and tone they use, as well as community member response and body language, could offer important insight into how some encounters escalate while others do not.

Test strategies to improve body-worn camera efficacy.

Additional research is needed to develop optimization strategies for body-worn camera use. Changing policies and procedures, such as limiting officers’ discretion and using camera footage for coaching and training, might strengthen accountability and transparency.

Engage in research that examines collateral impacts and consequences of using body-worn camera data.

Body-worn cameras pose privacy concerns for individuals who are recorded as footage may fall under open-records statutes that would require the footage to be released upon request.[22] Exempting footage from release would alleviate privacy concerns, but could also prevent public access to footage that reveals misconduct. Research is needed to explore the use of automated video processing to help with demand and to explore data management techniques and solutions that identify and report on key metrics while protecting privacy rights.

Evaluate optimal retention strategies.

Research should explore optimizing video storage and processing procedures to balance the maintenance costs and probative value in agency oversight and investigations, as body-worn cameras generate a large volume of data, the storage of which can be costly. Redaction of video footage for release is time-consuming and labor-intensive. While professional data management solutions and software redaction might help agencies manage this issue, solutions are also likely to create additional costs and increase law enforcement budgets. In addition, current agency policies and state statutes tend to be inadequate in regulating the retention of footage as potential exculpatory evidence. Researchers who recently examined this issue said states should “create statutes regulating the time periods in which body-worn camera footage must be retained while also balancing the logistic burden that high-volume video storage imposes on police departments”.[23]

Citations ▸

[1] Hyland, S. (2018). Body-worn cameras in law enforcement agencies, 2016. US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics. https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/bwclea16.pdf

[2] Willis, J. (2022). “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”: An in-depth examination of police officer perceptions of body-worn camera implementation and their relationship to policy, supervision, and training. Criminology & Public Policy, 1-25. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12591

Lum, C., Stoltz, M., Koper, C. S., & Scherer, J. A. (2019). Research on body‐worn cameras: What we know, what we need to know. Criminology & Public Policy, 18(1), 93-118. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12412

[3] Lum, C., Stoltz, M., Koper, C. S., & Scherer, J. A. (2019). Research on body‐worn cameras: What we know, what we need to know. Criminology & Public Policy, 18(1), 93-118. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12412

[4] White, M. (2014). Police officer body-worn cameras: Assessing the evidence. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs. https://bja.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh186/files/bwc/pdfs/diagnosticcenter_policeofficerbody-worncameras.pdf

[5] Lum, C., Koper, C. S., Wilson, D. B., Stoltz, M., Goodier, M., Eggins, E., ... & Mazerolle, L. (2020). Body-worn cameras’ effects on police officers and citizen behavior: A systematic review. Campbell Systematic Reviews, 16(3), e1112. https://doi.org/10.1002/cl2.1112

[6] Braga, A. A., Sousa, W. H., Coldren, Jr., J. R., & Rodriguez, D. (2018). The effects of body-worn cameras on police activity and police-citizen encounters: A randomized control trial. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 108(3), 511-538. https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclc/vol108/iss3/3/

[7] Ariel, B. (2016). Police body cameras in large police departments. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 106(4), 729-768. https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclc/vol106/iss4/3/

[8] Ariel, B., Sutherland, A. Henstock, D., Young, J., Drover, P., Sykes, J., Megicks, S., & Henderson, R. (2016). Report: Increases in police use of force in the presence of body-worn cameras are driven by officer discretion: A protocol-based subgroup analysis of 10 randomized experiments. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 12(3), 453-463. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-016-9261-3

Hedberg, E., Katz, C. M., & Choate, D. E. (2016). Body-worn cameras and citizen interactions with police officers: Estimating plausible effects given varying compliance levels. Justice Quarterly, 34(4), 627-651. https://doi.org/10.1080/07418825.2016.1198825

[9] Lum, C., Stoltz, M., Koper, C. S., & Scherer, J. A. (2019). Research on body‐worn cameras: What we know, what we need to know. Criminology & Public Policy, 18(1), 93-118. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12412

[10] Pyo, S. (2021). Do body-worn cameras change law enforcement arrest behavior? A national study of local police departments. The American Review of Public Administration, 51(3), 184-198. https://doi.org/10.1177/0275074020982688

[11] Voigt, R., Camp, N. P., Prabhakaran, V., & Eberhardt, J. L. (2017). Language from police body camera footage shows racial disparities in officer respect. PNAS, 114(25), 6521-6526. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1702413114

[12] Hyland, S. (2018). Body-worn cameras in law enforcement agencies, 2016. US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics. https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/bwclea16.pdf

[13] Sousa, W. H., Miethe, T. D., & Sakiyama, M. (2018). Inconsistencies in public opinion of body-worn cameras on police: Transparency, trust, and improved police-citizen relationships. Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice, 12(1), 100-108. https://doi.org/10.1093/police/pax015

[14] Lum, C., Stoltz, M., Koper, C. S., & Scherer, J. A. (2019). Research on body‐worn cameras: What we know, what we need to know. Criminology & Public Policy, 18(1), 93-118. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12412

[15] Lum, C., Stoltz, M., Koper, C. S., & Scherer, J. A. (2019). Research on body‐worn cameras: What we know, what we need to know. Criminology & Public Policy, 18(1), 93-118. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12412

[16] Katz, C. M., Choate, D. E., Ready, J. R., & Nuño, L. (2014). Evaluating the impact of officer worn body cameras in the Phoenix Police Department. Center for Violence Prevention & Community Safety, Arizona State University. https://publicservice.asu.edu/sites/default/files/ppd_spi_feb_20_2015_final.pdf

[17] Rushin, S., & Edwards, G. (2017). De-policing. Cornell Law Review, 102(3), 721-782. https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/clr/vol102/iss3/3/

Lichtblau, E. (2016, May 11). F.B.I. Director says ‘viral video effect’ blunts police work. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/12/us/comey-ferguson-effect-police-videos-fbi.html

Lum, C., Koper, C. S., Wilson, D. B., Stoltz, M., Goodier, M., Eggins, E., ... & Mazerolle, L. (2020). Body-worn cameras’ effects on police officers and citizen behavior: A systematic review. Campbell Systematic Reviews, 16(3), e1112. https://doi.org/10.1002/cl2.1112

Newell, B. C., & Greidanus, R. (2018). Officer discretion and the choice to record: Officer attitudes towards body-worn camera activations. North Carolina Law Review, 96(5), 1525-1578. https://scholarship.law.unc.edu/nclr/vol96/iss5/8/

[18] Willis, J. (2022). “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”: An in-depth examination of police officer perceptions of body-worn camera implementation and their relationship to policy, supervision, and training. Criminology & Public Policy, 1-25. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12591

Lum, C., Koper, C. S., Wilson, D. B., Stoltz, M., Goodier, M., Eggins, E., ... & Mazerolle, L. (2020). Body-worn cameras’ effects on police officers and citizen behavior: A systematic review. Campbell Systematic Reviews, 16(3), e1112. https://doi.org/10.1002/cl2.1112

[19] Huff, J., Katz, C. M., Webb, V. J., & Hedberg, E. C. (2020). Attitudinal changes toward body-worn cameras: Perceptions of cameras, organizational justice, and procedural justice among volunteer and mandated officers. Police Quarterly, 23(4)), 547-588. https://doi.org/10.1177/1098611120928306

Kyle, M. J., & White, D. R. (2017). The impact of law enforcement perceptions of organizational justice on their attitudes regarding body-worn cameras. Journal of Crime and Justice, 40(1), 68-83. https://doi.org/10.1080/0735648X.2016.1208885

[20] Koen, M. C., Willis, J. J., & Mastrofski, S. D. (2018) The effects of body-worn cameras on police organisation and practice: A theory-based analysis. Policing and Society, 29(8), 968-984. https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2018.1467907

[21] Todak, N., Gaub, J. E., & White, M. (2018). The importance of external stakeholders for police body-worn camera diffusion. Policing: An International Journal, 41(4), 448-464. https://doi.org/10.1108/PIJPSM-08-2017-0091

[22] Lin, R. (2016). Police body worn cameras and privacy: Retaining benefits while reducing public concerns. Duke Law & Technology Review, 14(1), 346-365. https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1295&context=dltr

[23] Barbour, B. X. (2016). Big budget productions with limited release: Video retention issues with body-worn cameras. Fordham Law Review, 85(4), 1725-1755. https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5305&context=flr