Police Body-Worn Cameras: Effects on Officers’ Burnout and Perceived Organizational Support

• DOI: 10.1177/1098611118783987
• Author: Sharon Mastracci,Ian Adams
• Date: 01 March 2019
• Published date: 01 March 2019
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Police Body-Worn

Cameras: Effects on

Officers’ Burnout

and Perceived

Organizational Support

Ian Adams

1

and Sharon Mastracci

1

Abstract

Police departments in the United States are rapidly adopting body-worn cameras

(BWCs). To date, no study has investigated the effects of BWCs on police officers

themselves, despite evidence suggesting negative effects of electronic performance

monitoring on employee well-being. Police officers already experience higher levels

of burnout than other professions. We hypothesize that the intense surveillance of

BWCs will manifest in how police officers perceive the organizational support of

their departments and will increase burnout. We test these hypotheses using data

from patrol officers (n¼271) and structural equation modeling. We find BWCs

increase police officer burnout, and this effect is statistically different from zero.

We also find that BWCs decrease officers’ perceived organizational support,

which mediates the relationship between BWCs and burnout. Greater perceived

organizational support can blunt the negative effects of BWCs. Our study is the first

to situate effects on officers at the center of BWC literature.

Keywords

body-worn cameras, burnout, perceived organizational support, police, structural

equation modeling

1

Department of Political Science, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

Corresponding Author:

Ian Adams, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.

Email: ian.adams@utah.edu

Police Quarterly

2019, Vol. 22(1) 5–30

!The Author(s) 2018

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DOI: 10.1177/1098611118783987

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Body-worn cameras (BWCs) are a relatively new technology intended to

increase transparency in policing, decrease police use of force, and decrease

complaints related to officer misbehavior. Broad, but not unequivocal, support

for BWCs is found among police officers (Fouche, 2014; Gramagila & Phillips,

2017; Jennings, Fridell, & Lynch, 2014; Sandhu, 2017; Young & Ready, 2015),

law enforcement leadership (Smykla, Crow, Crichlow, & Snyder, 2016), and the

public (Ellis, Jenkins, & Smith, 2015). BWCs have the potential to strengthen

relationships between police and the communities they serve. Ultimately, how-

ever, “the intended and unintended consequences of using this emergent tech-

nology in policing remain unclear” (Ariel, Sutherland, Henstock, Young &

Sosinski, 2018, p. 2). Despite rapid and accelerating adoption of BWCs in the

United States (Lum, Rosenbaum, et al., 2015; Wasserman, 2014), too little

academic research has yet been done, and all extant studies recommend further

research (Ariel, Sutherland, Henstock, Young, Drover, et al., 2018; Cubitt,

Lesic, Myers & Corry, 2017; Drover & Ariel, 2015; White, 2014).

Furthermore, no study to date has addressed the potential effect of BWCs on

the officers who wear them, despite evidence from earlier workplace monitoring

literature suggesting the possibility of adverse effects of workplace surveillance

technology (Alge, 2001; Anomneze, Ugwu, Enwereuzor, & Ugwu, 2016; Ariss,

2002; Holman, Chissick & Totterdell, 2002; Silverman & Smith, 1995; Smith,

Carayon, Sanders, Lim & LeGrande, 1992). While some recent studies explore

officer attitudes toward BWCs, none examine the effect of wearing BWCs on

officers themselves. Using structural equation modeling (SEM), we investigate

the impact BWCs may have on officers.

Review of the Literature

Despite calls for greater reliance on evidence-based practices (Sherman, 2013,

2015; Willis & Mastrofski, 2016), police departments increasingly adopt BWCs

across the United States and worldwide, without a full understanding of their

effectiveness, much less the effects on officers themselves (Mateescu, Rosenblat,

& Boyd, 2015). Even after President Obama provided $75 million in federal

grants for police agencies to purchase BWCs in 2015, researchers are only

now exploring the intentional and unintentional effects of this new technology

on policing (Lum, Rosenbaum, et al., 2015). Overall, results from published

research on the effects of BWCs are mixed (White, Gaub, & Todak, 2017), as

seen in Table 1.

Mixed results may be due, at least in part, to BWC research occurring in a

post hoc manner following implementation using a range of methods (Cubitt,

et al., 2017), or varying implementation across sites (Ariel et al., 2016b). In

addition, much of the BWC research focuses on use of force, despite evidence

that use of force represents less than 1% of police–public interactions (Lersch &

Mieczkowski, 2005). What is more, no previous research has examined the

6Police Quarterly 22(1)