Citation

Sahin NM, Cubukcu S. J. Police Crim. Psychol. 2022; 37(3): 512-525.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s11896-021-09472-9

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

New policing technologies have generated solutions to many policing issues. In particular, portable camera systems (in-car or body-worn) have been offered as a tool to address the issue of police excessive use of force. It has been argued that police camera systems increase transparency in law enforcement and deter both police officers and citizens from engaging in undesirable behaviors during encounters. However, the question of how effective these technologies are in increasing the accountability of police departments still remains unanswered. Some argue that the use of camera systems to record police behavior does not create a significant reduction in excessive use-of-force complaints or does not serve as an effective accountability tool as expected. From this perspective, this study explores the impact of in-car camera usage on police use-of-force investigations. This research examines the impact of in-car cameras on the total, dismissed, and sustained excessive use-of-force complaints against 891 police departments in the USA with more than 100 sworn officers. We employed Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) 2007 dataset to conduct this analysis. We utilized negative binomial regression analysis in STATA 15 to examine whether the adoption of vehicle camera systems by police agencies has an impact on dismissed and sustained complaints of inappropriate use-of-force. We found that the adoption of in-car cameras correlates with the number of dismissed cases; however, we did not find any significant relationship between in-car camera usage and sustained cases. Police departments using in-car camera systems are more likely to dismiss citizen complaints, rather than sustaining them. We concluded that video footages generated by in-car camera systems are inadequate in producing evidence to back up the complainants' claims or in generating proof of excessive use of force for further investigation. Our findings suggest that police departments should not solely rely on in-car cameras if they want to enhance accountability and unearth police misconduct within their department.

Language: en

Keywords

Adjudication of citizen complaints; In-car cameras; Internal investigations; Police accountability; Police technology; Use of force complaints