Police equipped with body-worn cameras receive 93% fewer complaints from the public, according to a new study that suggests the technology helps to cool down potentially volatile encounters.
Academics at Cambridge University, whose research looked at nearly 1.5m beat hours across more than 4,000 shifts by officers in the UK and California, claim their findings suggest the cameras herald a “profound sea change in modern policing”. [..]
Throughout the year-long experiment, researchers were said to have randomly assigned about half of the officers starting their shifts with cameras. All officers in the forces taking part worked with cameras at some point, the researchers said.
During the 12 months before the study, a total of 1,539 complaints were lodged against police in the areas examined, amounting to 1.2 complaints per officer. By the end, the number of complaints had fallen to 133 for the year across all sites – 0.08 per officer.
The researchers were surprised to find that there was no statistically significant difference between the number of complaints received by officers wearing cameras and those without, a result they said may be a result of “contagious accountability”.
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