Program Goals/Program Components
Police body-worn cameras (BWCs) are designed to improve policing and the perceived legitimacy of the police and legal institutions. One agency that has adopted the use of BWCs is the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia (MPD). The MPD is one of the largest police departments in the country, with more than 3,800 sworn officers and a resident population of more than 680,000 (Yokum et al. 2017). BWCs are intended to increase positive officer interactions with the community by reducing unprofessional behavior or misconduct, especially unjustified use of force. Similarly, civilians interacting with officers should be less likely to engage in inappropriate or combative behavior if they are aware that the officers are wearing BWCs.
In Washington, D.C., MPD police officers who wear BWCs are required to start their BWC recordings as soon as a call is initiated, via radio or communication from the Office of Unified Communications, on their mobile data computer, or at the beginning of any self-initiated police action. This includes, but is not limited to, all stops and searches, vehicle and foot pursuits, traffic crash scenes, encounters with individuals presenting with mental illness, use-of-force situations, arrests, and encounters requiring officers to advise suspects about their Miranda rights.
When feasible, MPD officers are supposed to inform citizens that they are being recorded at the beginning of any contact. Officers are not supposed to deactivate their BWCs unless they have notified the dispatcher of the assignment’s disposition, concluded their involvement in a citizen contact, or have been ordered to do so by a higher-ranking official, in which case the officers should document the order and the name of the official on the incident or arrest report and on the BWC.
MPD officers are required to upload recorded data from the BWCs to a storage database. Recordings are categorized according to the most serious offense. The categories include, but are not limited to, supervisory review (for any recording that needs to be reviewed by an official), murder/manslaughter, first-and second-degree sexual assault, crime involving a public official (felony or misdemeanor), all other felonies, and all other misdemeanors.
Officers involved in a police shooting may not review their BWC recordings, or other officers’ recordings, related to the case. In all other cases, officers may view their recordings to assist in accurate report writing, testifying in court, for training purposes, and debriefing (MPD 2016). BWC recordings are retained and accessible on the database for a period of 90 calendar days, unless they are specifically categorized otherwise (for example, recordings pertaining to murder/manslaughter are retained for 65 years).
Program Theory
One of the underlying theoretical foundations of police BWCs is deterrence theory, particularly the portion of theory that focuses on certainty of apprehension for wrongdoing (Ariel et al. 2018). BWCs may increase people’s perceived risk of detection or apprehension for wrongdoing because their actions may be caught on camera. This deterrent effect may reduce rule violations or illegal behavior by police, but it may also apply to people with whom they come into contact if those people are aware their behavior is being recorded (Paternoster 2010).
The deterrent effect of BWCs may also be grounded in the Hawthorne effect, which suggests that individuals behave differently when they believe they are being watched. BWCs are therefore anticipated to have a positive effect on the behavior of both police and civilians (Farrer and Ariel 2013).
