Activate Compliance: A Multilevel Study of Factors Associated With Activation of Body-Worn Cameras

• Author: Rémi Boivin,Maurizio D’Elia,Brigitte Poirier
• DOI: 10.1177/0734016820988327
• Published date: 01 March 2022
• Date: 01 March 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Activate Compliance:

A Multilevel Study of Factors

Associated With Activation

of Body-Worn Cameras

R´

emi Boivin

1,2

, Brigitte Poirier

1,2

, and Maurizio D’Elia

3

Abstract

Body-worn cameras (BWCs) have quickly become popular tools in law enforcement. In theory,

BWCs have the capacity to record all the time. However, due to privacy, legal, and practical

concerns, cameras must be activated by officers in most jurisdictions. Early comments have raised

concerns that officers would not activate their cameras in situations where there was a possibility

that an intervention would not “look good” or when a situation might involve unnecessary or

excessive use of force—posing a clear threat to transparency. The current study aims (1) to examine

activation trends during a 10-month pilot to better understand officers’ compliance with depart-

mental policies over time and (2) to identify situational and individual factors related to activation in

situations where, based on a detailed policy, cameras should have been activated. Using generalized

linear mixed models, camera activation was found to be significantly related to the nature of police–

civilian encounters and officers’ personal characteristics such as experience and gender. Because

suspicions of voluntary nonactivation in controversial situations can greatly affect police–citizen

relations, this article concludes on a discussion of automatic activation.

Keywords

body-worn video, activation, policy compliance, police, discretionary power

Introduced more than a decade ago (Goodall, 2007; Spencer & Cheshire, 2017), body-worn cameras

(BWCs) have quickly become popular tools in law enforcement. Broader interest in their use, at least

in North America, was encouraged by the decreased rates of use of force incidents and complaints

against police officers found during the Rialto experiment (Schneider, 2017). Academic research

that followed focused on “if and how” BWCs can change the behavior of those filmed, whether

citizens or police officers (Lum et al., 2019). Empirical studies suggest that BWCs can help solve

1

School of Criminology, Universit´

e de Montr´

eal, Quebec, Canada

2

International Centre for Comparative Criminology, Montreal, Qu´

ebec, Canada

3

Montreal Police Service, Montr´

eal, Quebec, Canada

Corresponding Author:

R´

emi Boivin, International Centre for Comparative Criminology, School of Criminology, Universit´

e de Montr´

eal, C.P. 6128,

succursale Centre-ville, Montr´

eal, Quebec, Canada H3C 3J7.

Email: remi.boivin@umontreal.ca

Criminal Justice Review

ª2021 Georgia State University

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/0734016820988327

journals.sagepub.com/home/cjr

2022, Vol. 47(1) 103–118

issues related to police behavior and problematic police–citizen int eractions (Ray et al., 2017).

Consequently, BWCs may also be a way to respond to legitimacy and transparency issues (White

& Malm, 2020). In the United States, for example, the Obama administration introduced in 2015 a

grant program to help police departments acquire BWCs. This program was in response to several

police interventions that resulted in the death of unarmed citizens. Footage is expected to help

resolve controversial cases by providing a “neutral” point of view, that is, a testimony from some-

thing not involved in the intervention.

In theory, BWCs have the capacity to record all the time. However, due to privacy, legal, and

practical concerns, cameras must be activated by officers in most jurisdictions. Early comments

have raised concerns that officers would not activate their cameras in situations where there was a

possibility that an intervention would not “look good” or when a situation might involve unneces-

sary or excessive use of force—posing a clear threat to transparency (Lin, 2016; Newell &

Greidanus, 2018). Also, while video footage is expected to be most useful in stressful situations,

officers may be less likely to think of activating their BWC under stress. In response to such

concerns, detailed policies have been developed to help officers determine when and where to

activate and/or deactivate their BWCs. Despite this, observers have suggested that officers have

too much discretion over camera activation (Lin, 2016), which could lead to selective recording.

Although a couple of studies have investigated activation trends, the relation between individual

factors (e.g., officers’ policing experience, number of arrests in previous weeks) and activation

(Lawrence et al., 2019) or the impact of departmental policies (i.e., voluntary vs. mandatory assign-

ment; Roy, 2014), there is still an important g ap of knowledge on BWC activation, especial ly

regarding situational factors (e.g., types of crimes, proactive vs. reactive calls).

In order to contribute to a better understanding of BWCs usage, this article aims to study

compliance with a BWC activation policy by (1) investigating activation trends over a 10-month

pilot where a strict written policy was adopted and (2) analyzing the relationship between situational

and individual factors and camera activation. Our work is divided as follows. First, we present the

current state of knowledge about BWCs and their impacts on police–citizen interactions. The

literature review allows us to shed light on the scarcity of studies about BWCs activation and

the effect of discretion on policy compliance. Second, we present our methodology, which relies

on data collected during a pilot led by the Montreal Police Service (MPS) from 2016 to 2017. Third,

we present our results. Fourth, we discuss our results and suggest theoretical frameworks that could

help better understand the role of discretion on BWC activation.

The Impacts of BWCs

Empirical evidence about the use of BWCs has accumulated quickly over the last decade, and three

waves of literature reviews can already be distinguished. Articles in the first wave set out guidelines

for future use and research (Lum et al., 2015; White, 2014), while those in the second can be seen as

progress reports (Cubitt et al., 2017; Maskaly et al., 2017). Although several questions still need to

be addressed, the third wave sits on a larger set of empirical results. The most recent review by Lum

et al. (2019; see also Lum et al., 2020) examined 70 empirical studies on several types of expected

impacts of BWCs related to officers’ and citizens’ behaviors, community attitudes, criminal inves-

tigations, and police organizations. Despite some encouraging results, it appears that “BWCs have

not produced dramatic changes in police behavior, for better or worse” (p. 18). As outlined by Ariel

et al. (2017), BWCs are expected to have a deterrent effect on both police officers and citizen, who

should modify their behavior in response to heightened risks of being caught (on camera).

The deterrent effect of BWCs has clearly been given the most attention: Police organizations

introduced cameras primarily because they expected an effect on officers’ interventions, and

research studies were aimed at documenting that effect. Early studies supported the idea that BWCs

Criminal Justice Review 47(1)

104