While body-worn cameras for law enforcement have been pushed as a way to reduce police use-of-force as well as assaults against officers, a new study suggests that the opposite may be true.
The largest to date analysis of body camera use by officers in the U.S. and the UK -- published this week in both the European Journal of Criminology and the Journal of Experimental Criminology -- found that the devices actually increased the instances of violence on police.
The research also found that on average, the rate of use-of-force by officers on citizens was unchanged for the most part by the presence of body-worn cameras.
Criminologists from the University of Cambridge and RAND Europe who conducted the study wrote in the research paper that to date, there have only been a handful of "peer-reviewed randomized trials" have analyzed the effectiveness of body-worn cameras, primarily focusing on use of force and complaints.
The U.S. police departments involved in the study were based in the California cities of Ventura and Rialto and UK police departments in West Midlands, Cambridgeshire, and Northern Ireland.
"We sought to replicate these studies, adding assaults against police officers as an additional outcome," the research paper states. Averaged over 10 trials, body cameras had no effect on police use of force and led to an increased rate of assaults against officers wearing cameras.
Researchers found that rates of assaults against officers equipped with cameras were 15 percent higher on average compared to when they weren’t wearing the cameras.
"More attention should be paid to how these devices are implemented," the researchers concluded. "Likewise, since other public-facing organizations are considering equipping their staff with (body worn video) (e.g. firefighters, private security, traffic wardens), the findings on risks associated with (body worn video) are transferable to those occupations as well."
