Policy Research

Wearing Body Cameras Increases Assaults against Officers and Does Not Reduce Police Use of Force: Results from a Global Multi site Experiment

Barak Ariel, Alex Sutherland, Darren Henstock, Josh Young, Paul Drover, Jayne Sykes, Simon Megicks, Ryan Henderson

Summary

This randomized controlled experiment evaluated several effects of police body-worn video cameras. Essentially, the results show that the usage of body-worn cameras has no statistical effect on the police’s use of force. Further, results show that assaults against police officers was higher amongst those with body-worm cameras.

Read Now

Policy Implications

The results bring into question the ultimate benefit of outfitting police forces with body-worn cameras, and further bring up the possibility of disadvantaged to the technology.