Body‐worncameras and representation: What matters when evaluating police use of force?

Abstract

Public administration scholarship seeks to understand ways to increase accountability within the policing profession. We employ an online conjoint experiment to disentangle the effects of both representation and body‐worn cameras (BWC) on police accountability and legitimacy. In the experiment, we ask participants to rate the likelihood that a police use of force incident prompts an investigation when there is a BWC present and racial and gender representation matches between the officer and the civilian in the use of force incident. We find that Caucasian officers who use force are more likely to be investigated. Our findings also reveal that civilians believe male officers who use force should be investigated and there is no need for further investigation when a BWC is utilized during a use of force situation. The implications of this study show that civilians view BWCs as the most important tool in providing accurate and honest assessment of police‐civilian encounters.

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

“…Thus, street-level cops often rationalize the necessity of illegal force when their authority is challenged, their safety is threatened, or when the officer does not believe that the suspect is likely to face some measure of "justice" unless the officer metes it out (Hunt, 1985;Manning, 2005;Skolnick, 1966;Wright, Gaozhao & Houston, 2022). While academy training emphasizes the use of legal force (i.e., coercion necessary to subdue, control, or restrain a suspect), officers on the street are acculturated (through interactions with field-training officers and experienced patrolmen) into accepting many forms of illegal force as "normal" and "necessary" to help officers gain compliance; preserve their safety during encounters with citizens (Hunt, 1985); and return home safely at the end of their shift (Moskos, 2008).…”