Exploring the Potential for Body-Worn Cameras to Reduce Violence in Police–Citizen Encounters

One of the most powerful advantages of body mounted cameras (BWC) is the reduction of complaints from citizens and the possibility of police force use. Several earlier studies reported that both results were significantly reduced after the use of biological weapons, but recent studies have not been able to demonstrate these effects. The current study uses data from randomized controlled trials conducted at the Spokane (Washington State) police station to investigate this problem. Approximately half of the patrol officers (n = 82) were appointed to the BWC in May 2015 and half of the remaining (n = 67) received the BWC six months later (November 2015). In this survey we investigated the impact of BWC on the use of force, complaints to staff, and injuries using data from the public sector over 3 years before and after the introduction of BWC. In Spokane, the results of statistical power and significance tests are limited, so the results of interest are rare. However, the trends within the group are consistent with the positive impact, especially with respect to the change in proportion. After the deployment of the BWC, the proportion of officials in each group's complaints respectively decreased by 50% and 78% (control and treatment); the proportion of officials using force in one group (39%) decreased significantly did. The treatment group decreased, disappeared after 6 months. There is no connection between BWC and official injuries. The authors describe the impact of these findings on the ongoing BWC dialogue.

The plan by the Phoenix (Arizona) police station involved using 56 body mount cameras, considering the impact of use over a year. Their conclusion is that the cameras they wear have a "civilization" effect on citizens. Citizen complaints decreased by 44%. Another noteworthy conclusion is that the storage and retrieval of data is 'wasteful' and the video evidence obtained by the wearing camera is to strengthen the prosecution of domestic violence. In the evaluation of Wichita police bodyware camera and available reference materials in 2014, it was pointed out that the sample sizes of Rialto (California) Police Department and Mesa (Arizona) Police Department are small. Wichita (Kansas) PD has 630 officials, but Rialto (California) PD has 111 officials.

Many stakeholders and criminal justice leaders in many communities have been working with wearing cameras (BWCs) to enhance the visiting skills between the police and the citizens and to increase civic awareness about the transparency and justification of the police, We recommend that you set up in the police. Correspondingly, many police agencies adopted this technology to improve the quality of community policing. However, existing evaluations of expected and unintended consequences of police equipped with BWC are still evolving. In this survey, the results of a randomized controlled trial (RCT) with more than 400 policemen from Las Vegas City Police (LVMPD) were reported. We discovered that the complaints from the police officers wearing the BWC and the use of force use are greatly reduced compared to the controllers not equipped with cameras. Officers wearing BWC also issued more arrests and more citations than controllers wearing their non-BWC