Do Body-Worn Cameras Change Law Enforcement Arrest Behavior? A National Study of Local Police Departments

Abstract

Controlling police officers’ discretionary behavior during public encounters has been an important issue in U.S. policing, especially following several high-profile police-involved deaths of racial minorities. In response, body-worn cameras (BWCs) were introduced to enhance police accountability by providing police managers an opportunity to monitor police–public encounters. Although many U.S. local police departments have now implemented BWC programs, evidence of program effects on daily police behavior has been limited. This study therefore focuses on whether officers’ arrest behavior changes when they perceive that BWCs are recording their interactions with the public. By conducting a difference-in-differences analysis using 142 police departments, I found that BWCs have negative and small treatment effects on arrest rates and null effects on the racial disparity between numbers of Black and White arrests. These findings imply that officers may become slightly more cautious in the use of arrests after wearing BWCs, but BWCs do not change their overall disparate treatment of Black versus White suspects. The results further indicate that the effects of BWCs on arrests are prominent in municipalities with high crime rates or a high proportion of non-White residents, which suggests that BWC programs demonstrate different effects according to the characteristics of communities served.

Use of Performance Information and External Accountability: The Role of Citizen Oversight in Mitigating the Motivated Evaluation of Body-Worn Camera Evidence

“…These results confirm previous literature findings that BWCs alone do not affect racial disparities in policing outcomes (Pyo, 2020). Moreover, they support the findings of studies that have found COAs to have a pronounced impact on law enforcement outcomes (Headley, 2021), including racial disparities in law enforcement outcomes (Ali & Pirog, 2019).…”

“…Given the above findings, we make two arguments in the current study. First, we argue that the findings on BWC impacts are mixed because the prior literature construes police agencies as politically neutral organizations that respond to accountability mechanisms in straightforward, predictable ways (Headley et al, 2017; Pyo, 2020). Such a view minimizes the role of valued practices, which are based on assumptions about the nature of the work; how it can be best performed; the resources required; and the risks and obstacles to performance.…”

Does an Increased Share of Black Police Officers Decrease Racial Discrimination in Law Enforcement?

“…Police BWCs represent an important type of reform policy, which aims at controlling police behavior during police-public encounters. Although empirical evidence about the effect of BWCs on officer behavior is inconclusive, several empirical studies have shown the potential significant influence of BWC implementation on police officers’ use of deadly force or arrest behaviors (Braga et al 2017; Katz et al 2014; Pyo 2021). The variable of BWC implementation is coded as 1 if the police agency implemented BWCs in a given year.…”

Police unions and use‐of‐force reforms in American cities

“…3 Overall, however, evidence regarding the influence of union strength on these types of policy has been mixed. In the case of Body-Worn-Cameras (BWC), Pyo (2021) suggests that strong unions can negatively moderate the relationship between high-profile incidents of misconduct and the adoption of BWC at the state level. Interestingly, when examining U.S. cities, the same author found a positive, if the statistically insignificant relationship between collective bargaining and BWC adoption.…”