Police Body Worn Camera and Student Perceptions

Police Body Worn Camera and Student Perceptions
Humber College – CRIM 4004
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Abstract
Wearable technologies comprise of different small electronic devices that are worn under, on to or with clothing. These include technologies such as smartphones, digital cameras, and smart watches. These technologies are becoming prevalent within law enforcement departments in the US as they hope to improve the interactions between police officers and the community by closely monitoring the behaviors of individual police officers. This report looks at the student perceptions of body-worn cameras among the police. The main purpose of introducing the cameras among the police was to enhance confidence and trust that citizens have towards police officers with the hope that it could improve police behavior. However, in the wake of many incidents of police officers using excessive force, killing innocent citizens across the US, and also increase in police brutality has led to the cameras not serving the intended purpose of holding police officers accountable for their actions.
Keywords: Body-worn Cameras, Police brutality, Police-community relations
Table of Contents TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u Abstract PAGEREF _Toc69783276 \h 2Introduction PAGEREF _Toc69783277 \h 4Importance of Research PAGEREF _Toc69783278 \h 5The Main Research Question: PAGEREF _Toc69783279 \h 6Empirical Research PAGEREF _Toc69783280 \h 6Theoretical Framework PAGEREF _Toc69783281 \h 9Method PAGEREF _Toc69783282 \h 11Participants PAGEREF _Toc69783283 \h 134.2. Demographics Information PAGEREF _Toc69783284 \h 144.2.1Gender PAGEREF _Toc69783285 \h 144.2.2 Age PAGEREF _Toc69783286 \h 144.2.3 Ethnicity PAGEREF _Toc69783287 \h 15Results PAGEREF _Toc69783288 \h 16Inferential Statistics PAGEREF _Toc69783289 \h 16Discussion PAGEREF _Toc69783290 \h 23Conclusion PAGEREF _Toc69783291 \h 26Summary PAGEREF _Toc69783292 \h 26Implications of the Study PAGEREF _Toc69783293 \h 27Future Studies PAGEREF _Toc69783294 \h 28
Introduction
The discussion on police body-worn cameras and whether they enhance trust and confidence in citizens has been a major debate. According to Braga et al (2017), the main purpose of introducing the cameras among the police was to enhance confidence and trust that citizens have towards police officers with the hope that it could improve police behavior. However, in the wake of many incidents of police officers using excessive force, killing innocent citizens across the US, and also increase in police brutality has led to the cameras not serving the intended purpose of holding police officers accountable for their actions. In the US, many police departments have suffered the negative impacts of trust and confidence crisis from the public. More often many people have recorded incidents of police brutality and the use of excessive force against innocent citizens like in the recent cases of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor who were killed by law enforcement officers in full glare of the public.
This study seeks to examine whether; the use of the body-worn camera enhances the public’s trust in the police. This stud...