Running head: BODY CAMERAS ON OFFICERS 1

What Are the Effects of Officers Wearing Body Cameras While On Duty

Todd M. Tanner

Salt Lake Community College

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Abstract

With the modern technology of being able to have officers wearing a camera that can

record from their body comes many new advantages to police work, but also concerns with this

modern technology. These cameras can be just as large as a deck of cards, and attach to the

officers vest for convince and functionality. Some of the advantages that comes with body

cameras are; being able to look back at certain situations officers are placed in, be able to

determine how to charge a criminal if they assaulted an officer, to be able to identify criminals in

the video if needed. With these advantages comes concerns that need to be addressed. First, is

this breaking any privacy laws of those being videotaped, second what part of the video feed

should the public be allowed to view if any, and third do these cameras have any adverse privacy

effects on the officers who wear them?

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These cameras are an amazing piece of technology, to understand the effects of them we

must first understand the cameras themselves. They weigh around six ounces, and can have a

resolution of 2K, which is higher then most security cameras. They are built to be abused, and

some even have night vision. They can record and store up to 9 hours of video and sound. Some

even have a flashlight. They strap, or button, onto a officers vest, and some have a balancing

feature to help from the video being shaky (zetronix, n.d.). These cameras also come with a

tracking device to make sure that the officers whereabouts are known at all times.

One of the rewards of these cameras are the ad they play in being able to look back on

situations to help the officers, and the judicial system in finding evidence, and answering

questions in their investigations. Not only do they help in investigations, they also change the

way some may act if they know they are being recorded. Three professors at the University of

Cambridge had this to say after they did random field testing of officers wearing body cameras,

It seems that knowing with sufficient certainty that our behavior is being observed (or judged)

affects various social cognitive processes: We experience public self-awareness, become more

prone to socially-acceptable behavior and feel a heightened need to comply with rules (Ariel,

2015). For this to be possible then the officers would have to ether let people know they are

being recorded or just make sure that the public knows the police department is issuing body

cameras to their officers. Not only does knowing that someone is being recorded change their

demeanor it changes how they look at a situation. This is proposed by a research article One

proposed effect of body worn cameras is reducing complaints against police, which assumes that

body worn cameras reduce officer noncompliance with procedures, improve suspects demeanor,

or both, leading to fewer complaints (Barak Ariel, 2016). This is a terrific way to think these

cameras would have an affect on those who feel that an officer is doing wrong when he is just
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doing his job. Therefore, cutting down complaints and letting the time normally spend on those

complaints be used somewhere else.

This footage can be useful in so many ways. Being able to see how officers react to given

situations is a huge tool that can be used to improve how officers are trained and how they react

to certain situations. We could start having trainings for things that are more specific to the areas

the officers work in. For an example they could look at the footage and see that the officers are

having a challenging time at doing arrests from a traffic stop that goes wrong, and being able to

review and train more specifically to those situations could potential save an officers life.

Another way that the camera may save an officers life is the tracking ability that they come with.

In the worse case of circumstances and an officer loses their life and the killer in unknown the

camera would not just document what happened but would give a location of the things

following up to the murder. This tracking feature can also be used as a babysitting tool to make

sure that officers are doing what they are supposed to while on duty.

With these amazing things the cameras can do, there are a lot of questions and concerns

that must need to be answered. Like what about the footage that is recorded, should it be allowed

to be viewed by the public eye? If yes, then how much? Some may say that what an officer does

is between the officer and the police department. Others think the public should have full access

to the footage recorded. We wont try to decide what is best, but we need to be aware of the

consequences of the footage and what we do with it. Three researchers broke down what body

cameras may cause Many uncertainties about best practices of body-worn camera adoption and

use remain, including when the cameras should record, what should be stored and retained, who

should have access to the footage, and what policies should determine the release of footage to
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the public. (Mateescu, 2015). Now these decisions will need to be determined before officers go

out into the field with the cameras operational.

Another question is what about those who are being filmed and their privacy. A senior

policy analyst from ACLU has a very important insight on this topic. Equally important are the

privacy interests and fair trial rights of individuals who are recorded. Ideally there would be a

way to minimize data collection to only what was reasonably needed, but theres currently no

technological way to do so (Stanley, 2013). This is kind of a trifecta of issues, if we allow the

footage to the public do we edit it for privacy? and if so, who decides what is acceptable for

privacy and what is not? This can cause some great concern to those who may be videotaped, but

with the right policies in place these concerns can be taken care of.

The officers wearing the cameras also may be susceptible to problems with these body

cameras. First if they have body cameras there shouldnt be a function for them to choose if they

can stop recording while on duty to make sure they do not discriminate what should be seen and

what should not be seen. So, with always having the camera on the officers conversations would

be on file. That could lead to secrets of the department getting out. The senior policy analyst at

ACLU points out Of course, just as body cameras can invade the privacy of many innocent

citizens, continuous deployment would similarly impinge on police officers when they are sitting

in a station house or patrol car shooting the breeze getting to know each other as humans,

discussing precinct politics, etc (Stanley, 2013). Now this can go back to what gets edited and

what gets released to the public. If the right policies are put into place these cameras can be one

enormous tool for this nations police force.

Even with all the debate of if these cameras are the right road to take to improve safety in

our communities we must look at how much they can protect the officers wearing them. They
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give a kind of safety to them, knowing that what is happening is going to be able to be played

back and looked over by others to see exactly what happened, this also means that officers need

to be on their best behavior, always. If we as a public will just take the time to treat officers with

respect, then none of us should have to worry about being recorded while we are around a

officer. Now the right policies need to be in place to ensure that all parties rights and privacy are

considered, once this is done, these cameras can give officers a little more peace of mind, and the

public a reminder that they are being protected over.

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References

Ariel, B., Farrar, W.A. & Sutherland, A. J Quant Criminal (2015) 31: 509.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10940-014-9236-3

Barak Ariel, A. S. (2016, September 22). Contagious Accountability: A Global Multisite

Randomized Controlled Trial on the Effect of Police Body-Worn Cameras on Citizens

Complaints Against the Police . Criminal Justice and Behavior, 44(2), pp. 293-316.

Mateescu, Alexandra Claudia and Rosenblat, Alex and boyd, danah, Police Body-Worn Camera

(February 24, 2015). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2569481

Stanley, J. (2013). Police Body-Mounted Cameras: With Right Policies in Place, a Win For All .

ACLU.

Zetronix. (n.d.). Blue line police body camera. Retrieved November 2017, from zetronix state of

the art: https://www.zetronix.com/blue-line-police-body-

camera.html?gclid=CjwKCAiAoqXQBRA8EiwAIIOWsiDBm68j7bceOgRLN3_-

e13gVeDJiKkHxaVKbzGkxP_N96pDS4faahoCgc0QAvD_BwE