Body-worn video: LE use in the USA?

[davidbfpo]

Body worn video cameras for the UK police are spreading fast, although locally a number of issues remain unclear and no-one wants to hear that several US police departments, Seattle PD IIRC being one, baulked at the cost of storage.

As if on cue here is a laudatory press article, but it does draw attention to some of the issues:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...-a6905691.html

[davidbfpo]

A report from Cambridge University, based on data from four UK police forces and two in the USA:

Police body cameras can dramatically reduce the number of complaints against officers, research suggests. The Cambridge University study showed complaints by members of the public against officers fell by 93% over 12 months compared with the year before. Almost 2,000 officers across four UK forces and two US police departments were monitored for the project.

The author is cited:

I cannot think of any [other] single intervention in the history of policing that dramatically changed the way that officers behave, the way that suspects behave, and the way they interact with each other.

Once [the public] are aware they are being recorded, once they know that everything they do is caught on tape, they will undoubtedly change their behaviour because they don't want to get into trouble. Individual officers become more accountable, and modify their behaviour accordingly, while the more disingenuous complaints from the public fall by the wayside once footage is likely to reveal them as frivolous.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37502136

Taking a very different stance based on practice in the USA 'Atlantic' weighs in:

recent events subvert the idea that the devices help or increase the power of regular people—that is, the policed. Instead of making officers more accountable and transparent to the public, body cameras may be making officers and departments more powerful than they were before.

Link:http://www.theatlantic.com/technolog...werful/502421/

[davidbfpo]

Discovered this website after a Tweet on a new academic article on the impact on video: 'Exploring the Potential for Body-Worn Cameras to Reduce Violence in Police–Citizen Encounters and it is American.'
Added as a potential resource.
Link:http://www.bwctta.com/

[davidbfpo]

An article from the New Yorker on policing in the era of body worn video cameras alongside Taser. It is clearly dependent on Taser, now Axon's help, but does cover many of he issues.
Link:https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...-police-abuse?

[davidbfpo]

An article that reflects the mainly US experience and sub-titled:

What’s likely the most comprehensive review of research on body cameras shows that they're most often used to prosecute citizens, not police. And while they've led to fewer citizen complaints, their impact on other aspects of policing, such as use of force, is less certain.

That’s the conclusion of a new report from the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy at George Mason University.

Link:https://www.governing.com/topics/pub...gmu-study.html

I have amended the thread's title to reflect the change from head to body-worn video (BWV).