Implications and Effectiveness of Body-Worn Cameras: Situational and Individualistic Characteristics

Police misconduct encompasses a variety of actions or behaviors officers perform by violating the citizens’ constitutional rights (Dunham & Alpert, 1997). Some of these behaviors are, but may not be limited to, police violence/brutality, coercion, use of force or torture to obtain a confession, abuse of authority, and sexual assaults in exchange for leniency (Lum et al., 2019b). According to the Cato Institute’s National Police Misconduct Reporting Project (MPMRP), on average, 1% of all police officers commit specific actions of misconduct within a given year, which may lead to wrongful convictions or death. In addition, the Law Enforcement Epidemiology Projects (2022) reported an estimate of 250,000 civilians injured by police officers annually.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive assessment regarding the effectiveness of body-worn cameras on police officers’ violence and unethical behaviors toward citizens from marginalized and minority groups. Through analyzing three contemporary research articles, this paper will examine the findings assessing the effectiveness of body-worn cameras, the proposal of occupational liability insurance, and the impact of compassion fatigue that influences the continuation of police violence. The three recent empirical studies evaluate approaches to addressing police violence and provide a deeper understanding of the ongoing concerns. Finally, an in-depth discussion of the limitations and policy implications of the three contemporary articles will provide suggestions for future research to address the gaps in the literature and active policies.

Overview

Criminal justice scholars and empirical researchers note that one of the most innovative initiatives to address police misconduct and violence was developing and implementing body-worn cameras (BWCs). Before BWCs, police officers were equipped with video cameras mounted to the dashboard of police patrol vehicles – which currently are still being used (Pickler, 2014). Under President Obama’s administration, a proposal of a three-year plan and an investment of over $260 million was directed to increase the use of BWCs on police officers and expand training to achieve police department reforms (Otu et al., 2022). At the time this decision was made, the public did not welcome this investment, as the package included $75 million to help pay for 50,000 small cameras to be included on the officers’ uniforms, using state and local government budgets to help pay for the cost (Pickler, 2014; Otu et al., 2022). This fueled significant concerns raised by the public regarding the use of state and local government funding to address ongoing civil rights violations caused by police officers (Otu et al., 2022).

Some scholars have noted that this initiative is similar to the disciplinary concept proposed and discussed in Foucault’s surveillance theory (Foucault, 1975; Kayyali, 2015; Pickler, 2014). The panopticon/surveillance theory is a disciplinary concept utilized within the prison’s penitentiary watchtower system, with the overarching idea that the prisoners’ inability to know if and when they are being watched effectively deters deviant behavior (Foucault, 1975). A wide range of classical applied research assessing the effectiveness of BWCs was based on the rationale that people act differently when they believe they are being watched. Therefore, the perceived impact of body-worn cameras was to encourage transparency, increase productivity, improve adherence to ethical protocols and procedures enforced by the department, and reduce the overall occurrence of police violence (Pickler, 2014; Yokum et al., 2019).

The 2020 Police Accountability Act was enforced following the national protests of the death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, at the hands of police officers in Minnesota. This national initiative sought to strengthen police regulations and accountability initiatives to reduce police violence or use of force by mandating body-worn cameras for all uniformed federal and state officers in the United States (Otu et al., 2022). Over the last decade, the nation witnessed a rise in applied or evaluation research assessing the effectiveness of body-worn cameras’ (BWC). In addition to analyzing the police and the public reactions to these cameras (Boivin et al., 2022), the assessment of BWCs seeks to enhance police transparency, legitimacy, and police-citizen relationships by bridging the gap between civilians and the police (Boivin et al., 2022).

 

Contemporary Assessment of Body-Worn Cameras

Yokum et al. (2019) conducted a randomized controlled study of 2,224 Metropolitan Police Department officers in Washington, D.C., to determine whether body-worn cameras achieved the desired change or expectation of reducing police use of force (Yokum et al., 2019). This study was conducted before the 2020 Police Accountability Act, and the authors randomly assigned officers to wear a BWC (Yokum et al., 2019). The outcomes from this study focused on police use of force, civilian complaints, policing activity, and judicial outcomes. Cameras were deployed district-by-district over 11 months (Yokum et al., 2019). Overall, across each of the four assessed categories, the authors found that police officers assigned to wear body cameras exhibited little to no significant differences in their behaviors and recorded events of using force toward civilians (Yokum et al., 2019). In addition, there was no statistically significant effect on civilian complaints toward police officers’ misconduct (Yokum et al., 2019).

The findings show statistically insignificant effects on police violence or use of force (Yokum et al., 2019). This means that BWCs may have limited effectiveness in reducing or addressing police violence (Yokum et al., 2019). The aforementioned findings support Sanchez-Morino’s (2014) earlier study, suggesting the limited effectiveness of BWCs. In addition, a few months after the implementation of the body-worn camera policy in 2014, Eric Garner was killed at the hands of a police officer using a chokehold –which is an unethical or forbidden tactic (Otu et al., 2022). Sanchez-Morino (2014) reported that despite the presence and screaming of eyewitnesses, along with multiple cell phone cameras directed toward the police officer and the body-worn camera on his uniform, the police officer continued performing the unethical tactic, causing Eric Garner to die at the scene. Yokum et al. (2019) further suggested the need to reassess the expectations of the impact of BWCs or their ability to induce behavioral changes in police officers.

Police Occupational Liability Insurance

Allegations of police misconduct continue to generate headlines more than 30 years after the deadly Los Angeles riots of 1992, which resulted in the first attempts to create police reforms (Otu et al., 2022; Yokum et al., 2019). Cases such as 23-year-old Jaahnavi Kandula, 33-year-old Jarell Day, 29-year-old Tyre Nichols, 28-year-old Brent Allen Thomspon, 25-year-old Easel Ford, 51-year-old Marlene Pinnock, 12-year-old Tamir Rice, 39-year-old Frank Alvarado, 18-year-old Michael Brown, 50-year-old Walter Scott, 25-year-old Freddie Gray, and many others provide clear evidence that body-worn cameras and any form of surveillance policies enforced on police officers are not a definitive solution to addressing the multidimensional causes of police violence. In addition, empirical evidence shows that body-worn cameras do not help bridge the gap between legitimacy and transparency with citizens; they are merely another form of collecting evidence that might be used after the fact (Yokum et al., 2019).

Concerns regarding the costs of such civil rights cases have increased. A 2022 Washington Post investigation found that 25 of the nation’s most extensive police and sheriff’s departments spent more than $3.2 billion to settle alleged misconduct claims within the past decade, including $1.5 billion in cases involving officers accused of misconduct more than once. Advocates against BWCs (body-worn cameras) argue that since the government continues to use taxpayer money to settle police-related misconduct lawsuits, the chances for the police to reform are slim (Otu et al., 2022). Otu et al. (2022) argued that although certain law enforcement agencies have insurance policies, the money used to pay for these expensive policies often comes from the allocated budget –from the taxpayers.

The Washington Post investigators (2022) noted that police departments with a long history of large civil rights settlements have seen their insurance rates shoot up 200 to 400%, and even departments with few problems are experiencing rate increases of 30% to 100% over the past three years. Therefore, Otu et al. (2022) suggested mandating police officers to purchase and maintain personal occupational liability insurance that the officers pay for out-of-pocket. The authors cited the three federal statutes that guide the formation of police officers’ liability: Sections 1983, 1985, and 1981 of Title 42 of the United States Code (Otu et al., 2022). It is essential to note that professionals in different fields, such as social work, counseling, and medical practices, are all required to obtain and maintain valid liability insurance to ensure accountability, responsibility, and transparency (Otu et al., 2022; Ramirez et al., 2019; Wulff, 2020).

Otu et al. (2022) utilized Kopinak’s qualitative triangulation process to gain extensive details and multilayered information regarding the different deterrent factors and the influence on police behavior when officers must wear body cameras and purchase and maintain liability insurance. The research was carried out for 19 months between 2014 and 2015. The authors interviewed 30 police officers from various police departments across the United States serving the community between 1 and 25 years (Otu et al., 2022). It is important to note that they did not develop a standardized set of qualitative questions. Instead, they had a general plan of inquiry (i.e., regular conversation or oral history) to ensure transparency and authenticity of responses given by the police officers interviewed (Otu et al., 2022). In addition, the authors used their judgment and expert knowledge of policing to identify respondents who would be useful for the study (Otu et al., 2022). The qualitative data analysis consisted of four different methods: reflective analysis (i.e., interviewers’ reflections on the conversation), thematic analysis (i.e., general analysis of the common themes observed by the interviewers), narrative analysis (i.e., analyzing differences in cases and describing the dynamics of individual narratives in their unique context) and content analysis (i.e., determine the presence of certain words, themes, or concepts within some given qualitative data) to help the researchers quantify and analyze the presence, meanings, and relationships of certain words, themes, or concepts (Otu et al., 2022).

Based on an extensive literature review, the authors examined the arguments of whether body-worn cameras have influenced police officers’ behaviors, specifically police violence and police use of force (Otu et al., 2022). In addition, the authors used both inductive and deductive content analysis. Inductive content analysis allows for flexibility in collecting and analyzing data without preconceived categories or theories (Otu et al., 2022). This analysis focused on assessing the impact of personal liability insurance and body cameras on police officers’ behaviors (Otu et al., 2022). In contrast, deductive analysis provides a structured approach to analyzing data, which allows for a systematic and efficient analytical process that focuses on the police officers’ behaviors compared to the universally accepted police behavior and culture, leading to increased use of liability insurance as instances and reports of police misconduct increased throughout their careers (Otu et al., 2022). The findings suggested that enforcing or mandating personal liability insurance for police officers, in addition to body cameras, strengthens the deterrence factor to reduce police violence and cases of civil rights violations (Otu et al., 2022; Ramirez et al., 2019; Wulff, 2020). In addition, the authors argued that continuing with body-worn cameras alone, without foundational policy changes, will not resolve the ongoing issue regarding police violence (Otu et al., 2022; Wulff, 2020).

 

Burnout and Compassion Fatigue

Police misconduct has reached an alarming stage, becoming a public health issue (Boehme & Kaminski, 2023; Ondrejková & Halamová, 2022). In September 2023, Jaahnavi Kandula was hit by a police car while crossing the street in Seattle. The 23-year-old international Indian college student died on the scene. The leaked footage caused an extreme level of discomfort and panic in the public when the responding officer was laughing about Jaahnavi’s death, which was caused by his fellow police officer’s needless speeding at night. In addition, the public was enraged when the responding officer rushed to turn off his body camera after realizing it was on and recorded the entire conversation. This video led the Indian government to demand that the U.S. authorities take stricter actions and rigorous measures against both officers, especially toward the responding officer who was laughing and joking about the Indian student’s death and suggested writing a check for $10,000 to her family, noting that the student had limited value. This incident is one of many events supporting the empirical evidence that reliance on body-worn cameras as the sole deterrent of police violence is ineffective (Ariel et al., 2018; Koen et al., 2018; Otu et al., 2022; Wulff, 2020).

Scholars have attempted to study the foundational factors contributing to police violence or misconduct (Boivin et al., 2022; Lum et al., 2019b; Otu et al., 2022). Multiple researchers noted that police officers loss of control in a particular situation and use of excessive force to control the problem or make an arrest is associated with the officers’ openness to diversity, sense of burnout, psychological or emotional characteristics related to their personality, compassion fatigue, burnout, and their overall assumptions about certain minority groups (Ariel et al., 2018; Boehme & Kaminski, 2023; Champion, 1997; Lum et al., 2019; Otu, 2006; Otu et al., 2022; van der Meulen et al., 2018). Papazoglou et al. (2018) argued that, in general, emotional well-being significantly impacts human behaviors, noting that the person’s emotionality or arousal level is an important context or foundation for rational conduct. Front-line professionals such as police officers are more prone to experience compassion fatigue due to multiple factors, including burnout (Giessing et al., 2019; Papazoglou et al., 2018).

Ondrejková and Halamová (2022) used a qualitative approach to study the contributing factors and the impact of emotional well-being in multiple professions, including police officers. They focused on exploring the multiple factors contributing to burnout, compassion fatigue, and lack of healthy coping strategies (Ondrejková & Halamová, 2022). The sample consisted of 607 participants from different professions, with 12 female and 29 male police officers serving up to 35 years and working 5 to 40 hours per week. The participants were provided with an open-ended questionnaire about their day-to-day experiences. They were asked to describe their most stressful situation throughout the week and how they managed to cope or recover from it (Ondrejková & Halamová, 2022). In addition, they were presented with different psychological assessment tools, such as the Professional Quality of Life Scale, version 5 (PROQOL-5), which measures the levels of compassion fatigue and compassion satisfaction. The Sussex-oxford compassion for the self-scale (SOCS- S) measures the five dimensions of compassion, which are recognizing suffering, understanding the universality of suffering, feeling for the suffering person, tolerating the uncomfortable feelings, and the motivation to act to alleviate suffering (Ondrejková & Halamová, 2022). Moreover, the Forms of Self-criticism/attacking and Self-reassuring Scale (FSCRS) measures self-criticism, self-reassurance, and self-hate (Ondrejková & Halamová, 2022).

Multiple linear regression was computed to predict the value of the dependent variable (compassion fatigue) based on six independent variables (self-criticism, self-compassion, compassion for others, compassion satisfaction, length of practice, and frequency of contact with clients/patients) (Ondrejková & Halamová, 2022). The analysis of the qualitative responses took a thematic or deductive approach, in which the authors focused on seven domains: emotional, behavioral, cognitive, spiritual, personal relations and support systems, somatic, and work performance (Ondrejková & Halamová, 2022). The results revealed statistical significance regarding how different professions experience compassion fatigue (Ondrejková & Halamová, 2022). In addition, the results indicated statistical significance in police officers’ compassion fatigue through burnout and exposure to secondary traumatic stress (Ondrejková & Halamová, 2022). Furthermore, the statistical significance of stress symptoms and the development of compassion fatigue was associated with how many years the officers served the community and their working overtime (Ondrejková & Halamová, 2022). Police officers scored low on most of the emotional well-being domains and scored higher on the stressful factors contributing to developing compassion fatigue and burnout (Ondrejková & Halamová, 2022). Overall, the findings suggested that police officers are more prone to compassion fatigue than other professions because of their constant exposure to stress, criticism, and secondary traumatic stress (Ondrejková & Halamová, 2022; van der Meulen et al., 2018).

Policy Implications and Future Directions

In an era of high visibility and pressure for accountability, video and audio recording technology offers citizens limited protection. Thus, it can be argued that transparency does not always translate to accountability (Derby, 2015; Otu et al., 2022). Victims of police violence and unethical behaviors deserve compassionate justice by preventing future police misconduct instead of widening the net of victims and relying on taxpayers’ money to resolve lawsuits against police officers. In the randomized controlled trial by Yokum et al. (2019), the authors found no significant effects from implementing BWCs on over 1000 police officers in the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, DC. A possible limitation is that during data collection, the officer wearing the camera may not have been involved in a situation requiring the potential use of force or other unethical behavior (Yokum et al., 2019). In addition, the authors noted that a possible limitation of the study could be related to the police officers’ attention being diverted from a situation or the desensitization to body cameras throughout the study (Yokum et al., 2019).

It is critical to note that location may play a significant role in determining the effectiveness of body-worn cameras in cities, counties, or states nationwide, in addition to the potential diversity of citizens within the area (Lum et al., 2019; Yokum et al., 2019). Overall, researchers have noted that the presence and the activation of BWCs on police officers is not a linear solution to addressing police violence and misconduct (Boehme & Kaminski, 2023; Lum et al., 2019; Otu, 2016). Thus, Otu and colleagues (2022) utilized rational choice theory and deterrence theory to propose a mandatory personal occupational liability insurance policy for all police officers, similar to the plans held by multiple professions (e.g., doctors and therapists). Their study addresses and proposes a solution to the ongoing concerns regarding the financial cost of police violence cases that are being resolved through taxpayers’ money, in addition to the impact of wrongful imprisonment, which costs the nation a large lump sum of money every year (Otu et al., 2022). Otu et al. (2022) suggested that implementing occupational liability insurance may address proactive and reactive police officer behaviors and attitudes toward minority and marginalized groups within the community.

Ondrejková and Halamová’s (2022) study provides an essential perspective to help understand the overall experience of compassion fatigue and the different factors influencing the development of burnout and compassion fatigue in police officers (i.e., long work hours and years of experience). However, Ondrejková and Halamová’s (2022) findings are limited due to the small number of police officers recruited as participants and the short period during which the data were collected, which may have limited the details and in-depth insight into the seven domains assessed and the contributing factors. Nonetheless, the findings from Ondrejková and Halamová (2022) support the findings from Giessing et al. (2019) and Papazoglou et al. (2018), which argue that compassion fatigue results when police officers are faced with the inability to resolve daily stressors. If unresolved, repercussions may include inappropriate use-of-force decisions and hostile or apathetic behavior (Giessing et al., 2019; Ondrejková & Halamová, 2022; Papazoglou et al., 2018). The authors highlighted that although it may appear intuitive that compassion satisfaction would decrease as compassion fatigue increases, it is crucial to propose a customizable form of interventions and techniques to strengthen satisfaction and mitigate or neutralize feelings of burnout and compassion fatigue for police officers, depending on exposure, years of experience, and work hours (Ondrejková & Halamová, 2022).

Moreover, research has shown that compassion fatigue can incapacitate front-line professionals’ well-being, decision-making ability in critical situations, and overall job performance. Compassion fatigue may negatively affect the police officer’s cognitive processes (e.g., dissociation and lack of concentration), emotions (e.g., irritability, sense of helplessness and hopelessness), and behavioral patterns (e.g., physical exhaustion and hypervigilance) (Giessing et al., 2019; Ondrejková & Halamová, 2022; Papazoglou et al., 2018). Furthermore, due to the officer’s inability to de-stress and cope with the adverse experiences and events they are exposed to, the officers may experience difficulty leaving work at work, which may disrupt the adaptive transition from shift work to a family environment (Giessing et al., 2019; Ondrejková & Halamová, 2022; Papazoglou et al., 2018). Thus, compassion fatigue may adversely impact the officers’ relationships with family and friends and their ability to maintain healthy connections (Giessing et al., 2019). Therefore, focusing on body cameras alone, without any foundational policy and culture changes, is not a practical or effective long-term solution to address accountability issues, transparency, police legitimacy, police violence, and misconduct. The findings can be utilized to develop interventions to alleviate and combat compassion fatigue and burnout by focusing on the multidimensional factors or stressors the police officers experience (Ondrejková & Halamová, 2022).

Considering the heterogeneity of the United States society and culture, it is crucial to understand the police operational functions, the organizational culture influencing such roles, and the impact of interpersonal well-being. It is critical to start addressing the institutional and individual behavioral tendencies, attitudes, and coping strategies within the police (Giessing et al., 2019; Papazoglou et al., 2018). The absence of integral public health and mental health-informed approaches to address police brutality and misconduct is glaring. Recognizing compassion fatigue and regaining satisfaction can positively impact police officers’ physical and psychological health, well-being, and occupational performance (Giessing et al., 2019; Ondrejková & Halamová, 2022; Papazoglou et al., 2018).

It is critical to view the continuous events of police violence as a public health issue. Policies to address and limit police use of force could be viewed as the rules that can directly impact the likelihood someone could survive a given encounter by enabling or restricting the officers from being able to choose a course of action within a given situation and certain groups or populations. Without addressing the grassroots causes, society and policymakers will not achieve the desired policy goal of holding police officers accountable and deterring them from abusing their power (Otu et al., 2022; Otu, 2006; Wulff, 2020). Despite the prevalence of police misconduct, especially in the context of police brutality or the use of deadly force, minimal empirical research has focused on studying this topic as a socio-criminological phenomenon. Therefore, it is crucial to address police violence and misconduct from psychological, sociological, environmental, and ecological perspectives.

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