ABSTRACT

Police body-worn cameras (BWCs) are at the cutting edge of policing. They have sparked important conversations about the proper role and extent of police in society and about balancing security, oversight, accountability, privacy, and surveillance in our modern world. Police on Camera address the conceptual and empirical evidence surrounding the use of BWCs by police officers in societies around the globe, offering a variety of differing opinions from experts in the field.

The book provides the reader with conceptual and empirical analyses of the role and impact of police body-worn cameras in society. These analyses are complimented by invited commentaries designed to open up dialogue and generate debate on these important social issues. The book offers informed, critical commentary to the ongoing debates about the implications that BWCs have for society in various parts of the world, with special attention to issues of police accountability and discretion, privacy, and surveillance.

This book is designed to be accessible to a broad audience, and is targeted at scholars and students of surveillance, law and policy, and the police, as well as policymakers and others interested in how surveillance technologies are impacting our modern world and criminal justice institutions.

chapter |22 pages

Introduction: The ayes have it—Should they?

Police body-worn cameras

section Section 1|40 pages

Setting the stage: Theory and practice

chapter Chapter 1|14 pages

Taking off the blinders

A general framework to understand how bodycams work

chapter Chapter 2|10 pages

Theorizing police body-worn cameras

chapter Chapter 3|15 pages

Reading the body-worn camera as multiple

A reconsideration of entities as enactments

section Section 2|102 pages

Accountability and discretion

chapter Chapter 4|16 pages

Can we count on the police?

Definitional issues in considering the promise of body-worn cameras to increase police accountability

chapter Chapter 5|15 pages

The camera never lies?

Police body-worn cameras and operational discretion

chapter Chapter 6|27 pages

Does surveillance of officers lead to de-policing?

A block randomized crossover controlled trial on body-worn cameras in Uruguay

chapter Chapter 7|27 pages

Police body-worn cameras in the Canadian context

Policing’s new visibility and today’s expectations for police accountability

chapter Chapter 8|7 pages

Commentary

Accountability, discretion, and the questions we ask

chapter Chapter 9|9 pages

Commentary: Questioning assumptions of de-policing and erasures of race

A rejoinder to Ariel and colleagues’ study of camera-induced passivity among traffic police in Uruguay

section Section 3|81 pages

Privacy and surveillance

chapter Chapter 10|16 pages

Not just about privacy

Police body-worn cameras and the costs of public area surveillance

chapter Chapter 12|23 pages

The rise of body-worn video cameras

A new surveillance revolution?

chapter Chapter 13|8 pages

Commentary

A republican and collective approach to the privacy and surveillance issues of bodycams

chapter Chapter 14|6 pages

Commentary: Protecting the rights of citizens on camera

Why restricting disclosure of police body camera footage is better than giving victims control over recording

chapter |9 pages

Conclusion

Body-worn cameras, surveillance, and police legitimacy