The results are no surprise. There is a 50% drop in the use of force by police when they are required to wear body cameras.
We conducted a randomized controlled trial, where nearly 1,000 officer shifts were randomized over a 12-month period to treatment and control conditions.
During ‘‘treatment shifts’’ officers were required to wear and use body-worn-cameras when interacting with members of the public, while during ‘‘control shifts’’ officers were instructed not to carry or use the devices in any way.
We observed the number of complaints, incidents of use-of-force, and the number of contacts between police officers and the public, in the years and months preceding the trial (in order to establish a baseline) and during the 12 months of the
experiment.
Police use of force reports halved on shifts when police wore cameras. It is not known whether this reduction in the use of force is because members of the public were now aware that any misbehaviour by them to be caught on camera and used as evidence against them or police were aware that any excessive force by them would be caught on camera as well.
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