Body Cams Don't Stop Use of Force
The Unmet Expectations of Body Worn Cameras
Widespread use of body worn cameras (BWCs) is one of the reforms being widely touted as an answer to reducing police violence. While many are calling for their increased use, the promise of BWCs is turning out to be overstated. Evidence shows that body worn cameras don’t significantly change police behavior or reduce use of force by police. Instead, the benefit of BWCs is that they provide documentation after the fact, rather than changing police behavior or reducing racial disparities in policing. It is also becoming clear that the benefits of expanding the use of BWCs won’t be realized by simply providing cameras to police departments. Clear policies that are written with transparency, oversight, and accountability in mind need to become a standard part of BWC programs.
History of Body Worn Cameras in America
Over the course of the last decade, body worn cameras have become a more regular part of policing in America. In 2013, about a third of law enforcement agencies used BWCs in some capacity. After several high-profile police shootings, interest in increasing the use of BWCs grew. In Ferguson, video played a role in understanding the circumstances surrounding Officer Darren Wilson killing Michael Brown. The world learned at that time that there is sometimes a wide divergence between video of police force incidents and what the officers describe in their police reports. In 2015, the Department of Justice funded $23 million dollars in federal grants to help police agencies of all sizes implement BWCs around the country. By 2019, 95% of large police departments were either using or planned to begin using BWCs.
Limitations of Body Worn Cameras
People theorized that use of body worn cameras would have a major impact on the actions of both police and the people they were interacting with. Such changes would be in line with the well known Hawthorne effect, which was established in 1933 after a study that measured the productivity of workers under different conditions found that their productivity was increased because they knew it was being measured as a part of the study. This pattern applies to all kinds of behavior, such as following a diet when being monitored or following policies at work such as washing hands. It seemed logical then that when departments employed the use of BWCs, police would be more likely to follow protocols, act professionally, and be less likely to use force. They also hoped that cameras would result in a “civilizing effect” among civilians.
Unfortunately, recent research shows that knowing that video evidence of their interactions will exist has not had a statistically significant impact on use of force incidents or on civilian complaints. A March 2019 study published by George Mason University’s Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy reviews 70 other studies on the use of body worn cameras and found “BWCs have not had statistically significant or consistent effects on most measures of officer and citizen behavior or citizens’ views of police.” The largest study done was a randomized controlled trial in Washington DC that tracked the behavior of 2,224 officers over the course of 7 months. It published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America in May 2019. This study also found no statistically significant impact to police behavior when BWCs were used compared to when they were not used.
Benefits of Body Worn Cameras
Although BWCs don’t offer all the benefits initially expected, there are good reasons to continue to utilize them. Video footage provides a more-objective factual record in many cases, which can enable a better investigation. Most police departments support the use of BWC because the video can be used as evidence against suspects. Studies have found that using BWCs led to increases in arrests, prosecutions, and guilty pleas. But the footage can also help police resolve complaints when members of the public allege misconduct. Police departments and community leaders hope that having a record of incidents will lead to increased police accountability and transparency, and in turn will promote better relationships between police officers and the communities they serve. We know that police reports don’t always accurately represent what occurred. For example, when George Floyd was killed, the police report simply stated that Floyd “appeared to be suffering medical distress” and failed to mention that a police officer knelt on George Floyd’s neck for eight minutes. Video evidence, whether from cell phone cameras or police BWC, allows for a fuller investigation after the fact and provides a starting place for a discussion between the police and community members.
Effective Implementation of BWCs and the Need for Strong Policies
Justice Forward Virginia supports the increased utilization of body worn cameras by police departments, but recognizes that the benefits of BWCs are mostly limited to enhancing public trust and the reliability of adjudicative processes. In most relevant respects, they do not address the concerns of affected communities regarding the current state of policing. BWCs have not been shown to reduce racial disparities in arrests or convictions, or reduce instances of excessive force or other misconduct; and obviously they do nothing at all to reduce reliance on police and prisons to solve societal problems. In order to ensure the most good comes from the use of body worn cameras, implementing strong policies developed by a diverse group of stakeholders is imperative. Policies are too often written by police departments and for the benefit of police departments. This must not be the case moving forward, and policies that are already in place should be reevaluated with advocates for criminal justice reform.
When a BWC law was under consideration in Maine in 2019, the Maine chapter of the ACLU recommended that any policy have:
Rules to promote accountability, including clear rules for when to record, with minimal officer discretion; a strong mechanism for enforcing compliance; randomized audits; limits on officer review of footage; standards around video integrity and data retention; and
Rules to protect privacy, create transparency, and allow public access, including notice to people recorded; prohibitions on use for surveillance; clear parameters for public disclosure; civilian access; and a transparent process.
Policy around the release of video footage is another major concern for reform advocates. If the public feels that footage is only utilized to prosecute civilians and not made available when there are allegations of police misconduct, the BWC program will likely hurt the police’s relationship with the community rather than help it. This occurred in Washington DC after widespread use of BWC began. Charles Allen, a City Councilmember and the Chair of the Public Safety Committee explained, “Instead of engendering the type of transparency and trust that we would want this program to have, it has had the complete opposite effect.” The problem in Washington was that although an individual could go to the police station to view footage or submit a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to gain access to the footage, the police department could redact portions of the video or withhold it all together if the video was being used in an investigation. After feedback from the community, they changed their policy to allow close relatives of any person killed by police to see the video, even if it was still being used in an investigation.
Finally, when writing policy around BWCs, the cost of running a program must be fully understood and planned for. Not only are there upfront costs of equipment, but there are ongoing costs associated with collection and storage of video footage. Policy around the time of storage needs to be laid out as well as policy around when, how, and who can access video. Increases in discovery material will often require additional lawyers in prosecutor and public defender offices, as the video needs to be reviewed by the attorneys on both sides before court. There are also staff that will be needed to run the video program and audit the process to ensure that officers are complying with policy and so that the man power associated with providing video doesn’t become an excuse for not releasing footage.
BWCs can produce real benefits for the criminal justice system, and can shine a light on insidious racial discrimination and acts of police violence. But without careful oversight and well-considered policies, they will be captured and controlled by the very police they are intended to monitor.
This article was written by Carrie Brown.