Reimagining Guardians and Guardianship With the Advent of Body Worn Cameras

• DOI: 10.1177/0734016818814895
• Published date: 01 March 2019
• Date: 01 March 2019
• Author: Jennifer D. Wood,Elizabeth R. Groff
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Reimagining Guardians

and Guardianship With

the Advent of Body

Worn Cameras

Jennifer D. Wood

1

and Elizabeth R. Groff

1

Abstract

The implementation of body worn cameras (BWCs) is occurring at a rapid rate and with relatively

little information about their potential impacts on both the police and the citizens they serve. The

core assumption underlying this widespread adoption is that BWCs will increase self-awareness

among police officers as well as citizens, which will in turn reduce negative outcomes and improve

police–citizen relations. At the same time, there is a broader movement to emphasize the function

of police officers as guardians rather than warriors. This research draws from a mixed method

evaluation of a pilot implementation of BWCs in Philadelphia, PA. We draw from focus groups and

pre–post survey results to make the case for a wider conceptual frame in understanding the

potential for BWCs to transform policing. Specifically, we argue that cameras can provide a tool for

police officers to use in emphasizing their role as guardians. We provide evidence from the eva-

luation to support this view.

Keywords

body worn cameras, guardianship, guardians, police, technology

The implementation of body worn cameras (BWCs) continues apace as part of a national effort to

address a policing crisis in America. At the heart of this crisis is a concern about the fragile state of

police–community relations, specifically with communities of color. A series of high-profile inci-

dents of fatal police shootings across the United States catapulted an agenda, led by the previous

Obama Administration, to enhance public perceptions of police legitimacy (see Lum, Koper,

Merola, Sherer, & Reioux, 2015). The core assumption underlying the adoption of the cameras is

that these new technologies will generate more “self-awareness” (Farrar & Ariel, 2013; The Pre-

sident’s Task Force on 21st-Century Policing (“Task Force”), 2015, p. 32) among both officers and

1

Department of Criminal Justice, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Jennifer D. Wood, Department of Criminal Justice, Temple University, 548 Gladfelter Hall, 1115 Polett Walk, Philadelphia,

PA 19122, USA.

Email: woodj@temple.edu

Criminal Justice Review

2019, Vol. 44(1) 60-75

ª2018 Georgia State University

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DOI: 10.1177/0734016818814895

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citizens, thereby reducing negative outcomes including excessive use of force and citizen complaints

(Lum et al., 2016).

This development is thus driven by normative concerns about public trust and confidence in the

police. Moreover, it is situated within a larger discourse about the place of the police in American

society. Influential police leaders and policy makers have been arguing that the police must achieve

a cultural shift away from being “warriors” to “guardians” (Alexander, 2016; Rahr & Rice, 2015).

Rahr and Rice (2015) argue that “[d]espite two decades of aspiring to effective community policing,

American law enforcement seems to have drifted off the course of building close community ties

toward creating a safe distance from community members ...” (p. 2). Relatedly, the President’s

Task Force (2015) on 21st-Century Policing states that “[t]he vision of policing in the 21st century

should be that of officers as guardians of human and constitutional rights” (p. 45).

This article was inspired by what we learned from a pilot study that examined the implementation

of BWCs in one police district in Philadelphia, PA. The results that were most interesting to us

revealed insights into the potential to reimagine guardians and related conceptions of guardianship

with the advent of BWCs. We were particularly interested in officers’ comments that were sugges-

tive of the potential for the cameras to change how they perform their roles and accumulate

knowledge about places. Due to the parameters of the small study, we treat their experiences and

insights as provoking a broader understanding of guardian and guardianship opportunities both now

and into the future with the advent of BWCs.

This broader understanding incorpora tes the existing normative concern with imp roving the

quality of police encounters and ultimately enhancing police legitimacy. We move beyond this

concern, however, to suggest that BWCs have instrumental value to effective community policing

strategies due to their potential to enable crime prevention and the implementation of problem-

oriented approaches. In particular, we draw from routine activities theory to articulate a more robust

conception of police as “capable guardians.” Within this conception, officers make optimal use of

the cameras to know and understand the spaces and places that they manage and to enlist other

parties in reducing criminogenic opportunities. By integrating these normative and instrumental

dimensions of guardians and guardianship, we further suggest that the cameras provide a contem-

porary tool to achieve the original Peelian vision of a modern police that coupled a normative focus

on respectful and consensual police–community relations with an instrumental focus on crime

prevention. This article begins by describing a theoretical context for examining BWCs that ties

together these normative and instrumental concerns. In that theoretical context, this article seeks to

make the case for reimagining guardians and guardianship by drawing from pilot study findings

from focus groups and a survey of police officers regarding their attitudes toward BWCs and how

those attitudes changed after wearing them. This article concludes by highlighting some implications

of this reimagining for research, policy, and practice.

Theoretical Context

At the heart of the President’s Task Force Report on 21st-Century Policing is a call for a shift in

ethos away from “warriors” to a conception of “guardians.” The very first recommendation in this

report begins with the proposition that “[l]aw enforcement culture should embrace a guardian

mindset to build public trust and legitimacy” (Task Force, 2015, p. 11). This proposition is drawn

from Rahr and Rice who suggest we have “drifted away” from a vision of society depicted in Plato’s

(1941) Republic, where a class of “guardians”—what we now refer to as police—served to maintain

the social order and protect citizens. Guardianship was not just a vocation, but rather an enlightened

function made possible through education—of the Socratic form—that engages with questions of

virtue, ethics, and justice. Building on this argument, Cedric Alexander, in his recent book titled The

New Guardians (2016) states:

Wood and Groff 61