ABSTRACT
Body-worn cameras (BWC) have been increasingly adopted by UK police departments with the expectation of providing more transparent interactions with members of the public. Following empirical work conducted with two British police forces, this chapter will consider different challenges that emerge when using such technologies as tools for transparency. When exploring police officers’ engagement with BWCs in their everyday lives, different scenarios are narrated, portraying these tools as supportive or punitive. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 26 police officers, this chapter presents extensive quotations from these participants, demonstrating how BWCs can support or punish officers in their professional practice. It will also explore police officers’ feelings on how they are (or are not) in control of how these recording devices are used in practice. A particular scenario where the police officer lacks control is the capturing of accidental footage, recording police officers’ intimate actions and conversations. This chapter will then briefly explore how police officers perceive the public release of footage that captures police–public encounters. Through the accounts of lived experience from frontline policing, this chapter will present rich descriptions of the impact of police BWCs on technologically mediated encounters with the public.
