Policing III: Body Cameras

If we create some sort of citizen review boards for the police, their effectiveness will depend in part on the availability of accurate data about police-civilian encounters. Perhaps the most cited example is the body camera. Related to the body camera, I'm going to assume many parts of a police station today are covered by surveillance cameras, or if they are not, they can be. Also, I will note that there are significant privacy issues with cameras which I will simply defer to a later conversation.

Possibly the most important thing about cameras is to note that they are not a cure-all. They can only help as part of a throughgoing effort to increase transparency and accountability. I'll also note that cameras have roles in both transparency and accountability--they can provide the public with insight into the challenges associated with police work at the same time that they can be used as evidence to correct abuses. Of course, they can also be used to show that alleged abuses did not occur. In a properly constituted atmosphere of trust, they can benefit everyone. But they can only do any of these thing in the context of many other supports.

As an example of how I think body cameras can work, I'd like to point you to "The worst-case scenario" which describes a situation where police officers were called out to a mental health event where a gun and a knife were already present. There were two mentions of cameras; both jumped out to me:

First quote: "Parker and three other officers stepped into the building hallway in single file, hands near their weapons. The door to the woman’s ground floor apartment was ajar. He could hear a toddler crying and the woman talking to herself about devils. He kept his right hand hovering next to the grip of his gun. He looked down to make sure his body camera was on. Then he took a breath, pushed the door open, and stepped into the darkened apartment."

Second Quote: "During a break at the precinct, he looked back at his body camera video from the first call, on Saturday. He watched Granville’s frustrated attempts to get his attention, and his own quick dismissal of Ivy. He imagined how others might criticize him if the video was made public, as it would have been had the second call ended in a shooting."

I take from the first quote that pausing to check the body camera was a useful interruption here. Before it, the police officers hands were on their guns. But for a moment, there was a break to think about following procedure, about slowing down and thinking, about accountability and a larger perspective. Where so many situations can get out of control so quickly, I think that pause is likely to be a good thing in most cases.

The second quote, I think, is even more important. He reviewed the footage and reconsidered the events. As a rock climbing instructor, we do lessons-learned and near-miss analysis all the time. We seldom leave an event without considering and discussing what we might do differently to be safer and offer a more rewarding experience for our participants. The fact this police officer reviewed the footage and discussed it with fellow officers is to be commended. I suspect it's common to do so, but I don't know. With good problem-solving and introspection, building on this level of self-analysis could be a really powerful tool.

Of course, cameras would have to be used reliably. As a software developer, I would be penalized if I failed to commit code changes to a version control system that gave my peers clear visibility to my work. Similarly, police would have to be required to use cameras and be penalized for subverting that transparency.

In sum, I believe body cameras and related technologies are a important part of improving policing in the US. But, without institutional supports and throughgoing changes, they are just window dressing. Which gives me more to talk about tomorrow.