A Quasi-Experimental Evaluation of the Effects of Police Body-Worn Cameras (BWCs) on Response-to-Resistance in a Large Metropolitan Police Department

Examining Body‐Worn Camera Integration and Acceptance Among Police Officers, Citizens, and External Stakeholders

“…An evaluation of BWCs in the Rialto (CA) Police Department documented a nearly 90% drop in citizen complaints against police and a 60% decline in use of force by officers (Ariel et al, 2015). Similarly positive results were reported in studies of BWCs in Mesa (AZ; Mesa Police Department, 2013), Phoenix (AZ; Hedberg, Katz, and Choate, 2017), Orlando (FL; Jennings et al, 2015), Spokane (WA; White et al, 2018), Tampa (FL; Jennings et al, 2017), Las Vegas (Braga, Sousa, Coldren, and Rodriguez, 2018), and the United Kingdom (Ellis, Jenkins, and Smith, 2015;Goodall, 2007). Maskaly, Donner, Jennings, Ariel, and Sutherland (2017: 685) conducted a meta-review of more than 20 studies aimed at examining the impact of BWCs on a range of citizen and officer outcomes (e.g., use of force, citizen complaints, and citizen and officer perceptions), and the authors concluded: "The evidence seems to suggest that the police are generally receptive to BWC adoption, and that BWCs can exert positive effects on both citizen and police behavior."…”

Police Body-Worn Camera Perceptions Pre/post Deployment

“…The vast majority of those lesser uses of force involved merely physical strength to control the aggressor. A similar finding was found in Tampa (FL) where officers with BWCs were observed to have an 8.4% decrease in responses to resistance, while the control group without the BWCs were found to have a 3.4% increase (Jennings, Fridell, Lynch, Jetelina, & Reingle Gonzalez, 2017). As mentioned earlier, the same was found in Rialto (CA), which observed a 58% reduction in use of force incidents for BWC officers which, up until the point of the experiment, had realized ten times more use of force incidents than seen in the previous three years (Ariel et al, 2015;Farrar, 2013).…”

“…Furthermore, drops in expectations of citizens were also found across the board in areas such as respect, the likelihood of resistance during the arrest, and aggression. In Orlando, only 30-40% of officers agreed that BWCs even impacted citizen behavior or de-escalated confrontations (Jennings et al, 2017). Worse, White et al (2018) found that officers became less convinced the BWCs influenced citizen behavior the longer they used them.…”

Cops and Cameras

“…Ultimately, BWCs are not a panacea to solve all of the issues in policing (Jennings et al., , ) nor will they prevent all of the negative (and fatal) police–citizen encounters. Having said that, there is an increasing amount of empirical evidence that they are generally effective in making significant and substantive reductions in use of force and external citizen‐generated complaints (see Maskaly et al., ).…”

“…Subsequently, there has been a host of high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship that has further contributed to the BWC evaluation literature. Examples of this research include randomized controlled trials in Tempe, AZ (Gaub, Choate, Todak, Katz, and White, 2016), Spokane, WA (Gaub et al, 2016;White, Gaub, and Todak, 2017), and Las Vegas, NV (Braga, Sousa, Coldren, and Rodriguez, 2018); a host of randomized controlled trials in Europe (Ariel et al, 2016); rigorous quasi-experimental designs in Tampa, FL (Jennings, Fridell, Lynch, Jetelina, and Gonzalez, 2017), Mesa, AZ (Ready and Young, 2015), and Phoenix, AZ (Hedberg, Katz, and Choate, 2017); and several other methodologically sound studies in various jurisdictions (for a review, see Maskaly, Donner, Jennings, Ariel, and Sutherland, 2017).…”