Open to Interpretation: Confronting the Challenges of Understanding the Current State of Body-Worn Camera Research
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Open to Interpretation: Confronting the Challenges of Understanding the Current State of Body-Worn Camera Research Janne E. Gaub 1
& Michael
D. White 2
Received: 13 September 2019 / Accepted: 13 January 2020/ # Southern Criminal Justice Association 2020
Abstract In only five years, both the implementation of police body-worn cameras (BWCs) and the evidence base evaluating the technology has diffused at a breakneck pace. As the number of studies has increased, so too has the uncertainty surrounding BWCs and their impact on various outcomes. In this commentary, we bring together the differing viewpoints on the five existing summaries of the BWC literature, highlight the key sources of contention, and make recommendations for BWC scholars and consumers moving forward. Keywords Police . Body-worn cameras (BWCs) . Technology . Research base . Review
Introduction By 2014 – just before the deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and Freddie Gray – police interest in body-worn cameras (BWCs) had grown slowly but steadily (Lum, Koper, Merola, Scherer, & Reioux, 2015; White, 2014). In 2013, roughly one-third of surveyed agencies had some form of BWC program, primarily small-scale pilot tests (Reaves, 2015). The explosive outcry and civil unrest following the deaths of Garner, Brown, Gray, and other primarily young, unarmed, minority men served as a flashpoint for the rapid diffusion of BWCs as a tool for police reform. By 2016, nearly half of law
* Janne E. Gaub [email protected] Michael D. White [email protected]
1
Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 9201 University City Blvd., Charlotte, NC 28223-0001, USA
2
School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Arizona State University, 411 N. Central Ave., Suite 600, MC 4420, Phoenix, AZ 85004-0685, USA
American Journal of Criminal Justice
enforcement agencies had BWCs, including 80% of those with 500 or more full-time sworn officers (Hyland, 2018). This swift implementation of BWCs proceeded without a significant evidence base from which to discern best practices for policy development and program implementation. BWC evaluations were conducted as early as 2005 in the United Kingdom and Canada, but they were methodologically weak and had limited generalizability (Edmonton Police Service, 2013; Goodall, 2007; ODS Consulting, 2011). The earliest study in the United States was conducted in Rialto (CA) in 2012, the first-ever BWC randomized controlled trial (RCT) (Ariel, Farrar, & Sutherland, 2015). Since then, a host of similarly robust studies have been undertaken in medium- to large-sized agencies across the U.S. and in the United Kingdom (see Lum, Stoltz, Koper, & Scherer, 2019). In fact, the research base has grown substantially over the last few years: In 2014, there were only five published studies (White, 2014); by June 2018, there were 70, “a 14-fold increase” (Lum et al., 2019, p. 96); and by late December 2019, there were 119.1 Most early studies focused on the impact of BWCs on behavioral outcomes (i.e., use of f
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