Body Camera Study Shows No Effect On Police Use of Force Or Citizen Complaints (npr.org)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: Having police officers wear little cameras seems to have no discernible impact on citizen complaints or officers' use of force, at least in the nation's capital. That's the conclusion of a study performed as Washington, D.C., rolled out its huge camera program. The city has one of the largest forces in the country, with some 2,600 officers now wearing cameras on their collars or shirts. In the wake of high-profile shootings, many police departments have been rapidly adopting body-worn cameras, despite a dearth of solid research on how the technology can change policing. "We need science, rather than our speculations about it, to try to answer and understand what impacts the cameras are having," says David Yokum, director of the Lab @ DC. His group worked with local police officials to make sure that cameras were handed out in a way that let the researchers carefully compare officers who were randomly assigned to get cameras with those who were not. The study ran from June 2015 to last December. It's to be expected that these cameras might have little impact on the behavior of police officers in Washington, D.C., he says, because this particular force went through about a decade of federal oversight to help improve the department.

Comments

They need to do a study in St. Louis, or Baltimore

[chromaexcursion]

To be useful, they need to do a study where police misconduct is rampant.
Like St. Louis, or Baltimore.
At least the mayor of Cleveland had the guts to fire the cop caught on video.

NPR does necessary research - asks wrong question

[Wizardess]

NPR's studied a topic which needs some study - "What are the affects of body cameras?" Then it presumes the correct question is, "Does this affect police behavior?" Of course, that question in the end does not matter. What matters is whether citizens unjustly treated by police offered a better final outcome for police brutality cases and whether police officers unjustly accused by citizens with whom they interacted also provided a better final outcome in their cases. It's a shame NPR didn't seem to ask THAT question. (Or the person posting here didn't suppressed this portion of the question...)

{^_^}

Re:Of course not

[Mitreya]

police officers will happily turn off the cameras whenever they know they'll get in situations where they'll look bad.

Also, cameras malfunction when you least expect it. Odd how that happens.
Quick google search shows that, for example, 80 percent of Chicago PD dashcams videos lost audio due to 'officer error' or 'intentional destruction'

Re:False conclusion

[blindseer]

The conclusion was that it did not reduce complaints. That's different than reducing unreported abuse. It's possible that these cameras did in fact reduce real and actual police abuse when the victims did not report the crime.

I'll hear stories of police beating people after they've been cuffed. It will go something like an accused child abuser will be cuffed and then "trip" down the stairs on the way to the police cruiser. How do you catch that? Even if on camera it can be difficult to tell if it's really a misstep on the staircase, police pushing the accused, or the accused trying to get the police in trouble by intentionally falling down the stairs.

Even though the study concluded no change in officer behavior the DC police intend to keep the cameras. It must be that they see value in the cameras outside of the potential to reduce police abuse.