POLICE body-worn cameras have taken off like a flash. The UK has deployed more than in the past year, the US is in the midst of rolling out , Australia has introduced 10,000 since 2015 and other countries are following suit.
The idea behind them is simple: recording interactions between cops and citizens should reduce aggression and help to convict either party if they cross the line.
However, a string of recent, often racially charged, incidents has shaken public confidence in these devices. Last week, outrage was sparked by newly released video of Salt Lake City police officer Clinton Fox when he ran away after being pulled over on 13 August for cycling across six lanes of traffic and lacking a rear light. The footage, captured by body cams worn by Fox and his fellow officers, shows him yelling “I’ll fucking shoot you!” before firing.
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The district attorney’s office ruled that the killing was legally justified, saying that in slowed footage, Harmon turned to face Fox while holding a knife. The FBI has been asked to review the case.
In another incident, last month footage went viral of a Salt Lake City police officer a nurse in full view of his colleague’s body cam. And in Australia, an officer is being investigated for after his colleague switched off his camera.
“Many police departments leave it up to the discretion of officers as to when they activate their cameras”
So are police body cameras actually helping anyone?
The technology first came onto the scene in 2005, with a conducted by police in Devon and Cornwall in the UK. Body cams were rolled out more widely a decade later in the US in response to several high-profile cases of US police officers killing unarmed black men, including Samuel DuBose and Michael Brown, which sparked the Black Lives Matter movement.
When the officer who shot Brown escaped criminal charges in 2014, his family for all US police officers to wear body cams. A week later, the then US President Barack Obama asked Congress to fund 50,000 devices.
Eyes on the evidence
Now, we are starting to get a picture of whether they actually work, after several randomised controlled trials.
The was conducted in 2012 in the Rialto Police Department, California. For one year, officers spent half their shifts with body cams and half without. The results showed that they were half as likely to use force while wearing the devices. They also received 90 per cent fewer citizen complaints.
, published earlier this year, was carried out in Birmingham, UK, in 2014. Wearing body cams also halved police use of force.
The so far was published in 2016. It involved almost 2000 officers in six police forces in the US and UK, and revealed that body cams reduced citizen complaints by 93 per cent.
These findings suggest the incidents that hit the news are isolated, says at research organisation RAND, who co-authored the Rialto and 2016 studies. “You tend to hear only the negative stories,” he says.
The situation with the nurse in Salt Lake City might have been defused earlier if one of the officers had warned that they were filming, says Sutherland. “In our experiments, we required officers to do this because we believed it would act as a psychological trigger to all parties that they were being observed.”
Many problems associated with police body cams could be addressed by having firmer rules about when they need to be turned on and off, and how this is communicated to other people present, says at Arizona State University. At the moment, many police departments leave it up to the discretion of officers as to when they activate their cameras.
Katz led a trial of body cams in the Phoenix Police Department between 2013 and 2014, and found that officers recorded less than half their public interactions. Across the US, civilians have reportedly been killed by officers whose cameras were switched off.
“The first step is just getting the technology in the field. The second is getting officers to actually use it,” says Katz. “It will be harder to get the older generation of officers to form new habits, but those joining police academies now are being trained in the use of body-worn cameras and will be much more likely to use them.”
Several police forces are already tightening their rules, says Katz. For example, since July, Minneapolis police have been required to switch on their body cams as soon , after an officer while his camera was off. Forces are also issuing clearer guidance on when body cams should be switched off for privacy reasons – for example, when interviewing children, hospital patients or those who have been sexually assaulted.
We also need to address how footage is interpreted in court. Jurors often assume video is objective, but they can be misled by conflicting information and personal bias, says at the City University of New York.
Last month, she and two colleagues published a in which 408 volunteers were asked about their attitudes to police, then shown a real video of an officer beating a drunk young man. Some participants were also given a police report falsely stating that the man had hit the officer and had a knife. Those given the report were more likely to side with the officer, especially if they had more positive views of law enforcement to begin with.
Other factors may also bias jurors, says Strange. Because the cameras usually sit at chest height, those being filmed can look taller and more intimidating. And because they jerk up and down as officers move, they can make a situation look more volatile than it really is.
Even though three police body cams captured the DuBose shooting in 2015, the unsteady video makes it hard to see what actually happened. In court, the police defence argued that the footage shows DuBose’s car dragging the officer before he shot him, but a video forensics expert hired by the prosecution said a disproves this. The case ended in a mistrial in June after the jury failed to reach agreement.
Bringing in experts to help jurors interpret body-camera footage more objectively could help, says Strange. “But we are only beginning that research.”
In the meantime, having cameras is better than not, says Katz. For example, the Salt Lake City hospital footage led to the police officer being and the nurse receiving an apology from the mayor and police chief. “Having that evidence on camera meant it didn’t just end up being a case of ‘he said, she said’,” Katz explains.
“I’m absolutely convinced that police body-worn cameras have a positive and beneficial role to play”
Similarly, Baltimore Police Department in August after their body cams apparently caught them planting drugs. And it goes both ways: a South Carolina man was recently given a for attempted murder after shooting an officer who recorded the incident on his device.
“I’m absolutely convinced that police body-worn cameras have a positive and beneficial role to play,” says Katz, who is training police departments taking up Obama’s 50,000 new devices.
Body cams will never wipe out all police misconduct, but the evidence so far suggests that, overall, they are a force for good. Better officer training, clearer policies on camera use and guidance for jurors will help resolve teething problems. Then the crusade by Michael Brown’s family will have been worth it.
Body cams for all
It’s not just the police who are donning body cameras – teachers, mental health staff, paramedics and parking inspectors are also giving them a go.
Teachers at a handful of schools in and two secondary schools in the UK are trialling the devices. The idea is that students will be less likely to play up if they know their behaviour can be recorded. The results of these trials have yet to be released, but there are concerns that the cameras undermine trust with students.
Mental health staff at Berrywood Hospital in the UK whether body cams reduced patient aggression. The results of the pilot study, which were published in March, showed that staff members wearing body cams actually encountered more patient violence and verbal abuse, although 90 per cent of staff were still in favour of them.
Over , Australia, have been piloting body cams since June. The aim is to protect them from aggression in volatile emergency situations, but again no results have been released yet.
Similarly, dozens of councils in the US, UK and Australia are handing out body cams to parking inspectors, who are regularly verbally and sometimes physically abused. There are few formal trials, but several councils have reported positive results. For example, assaults against parking inspectors in Ryde council in Australia fell from cams were introduced in 2013.
This article appeared in print under the headline “Cops on camera”
