Representations of Policing Problems and Body-Worn Cameras in Existing Research

• Author: Christel Backman,Cecilia Hansen Löfstrand
• Published date: 01 September 2022
• Date: 01 September 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10575677211020813
• Subject Matter: Original Articles

Original Article

Representations of Policing

Problems and Body-Worn

Cameras in Existing Research

Christel Backman

1

and Cecilia Hansen Lo

¨fstrand

1

Abstract

In this article, we analyze scholarly publications on body-worn cameras (BWCs) to shed light on

scholars’ grounding assumptions about BWC technology and the policing problems assumed to be

amended by it. We conducted a systematic search and a double-blind review, including 90 peer-

reviewed journal articles, and analyzed how scholars warrant their studies, their findings and their

recommendations. We found that BWC research largely investigates the effectiveness of BWCs

worn by police officers in the United States and build upon a set of dominant policing problem

representations: the police crisis in the United States and the police use of force, lack of oversight

and control of police officers, citizen dissatisfaction and lack of police legitimacy, and police officer

resistance toward BWC use. Assumptions underlying all four problem representations is that BWC

technology will amend these problems and is legitimate and useful if the public supports it. Taken

together, this enhances the representation of BWC technology as a self-evident means of improving

community relations and police legitimacy in the United States. Finally, we provide recommenda-

tions for future research on BWCs, particularly the need for research departing from altogether

different problem representations.

Keywords

body-worn camera, body-worn video, problem representations, policing, social control

professionals

Body-worn cameras (BWCs) are a technology that allows users to record video and sound of

events around them without the need for hand-held cameras. In this article, we depart from the

notion of BWCs as a solution to one or more policing problems and, as such, a criminal justice and

crime control phenomenon worthy of study. We analyze all available research articles about BWC

use in social control professions published in English in academic journals until May 2020. This we

do to shed light on scholars’ grounding assumptions about both the state of contemporary policing

1

Department of Sociology and Work Science, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

Corresponding Author:

Christel Backman, Department of Sociology and Work Science, University of Gothenburg, PO Box 720, SE405 30

Gothenburg, Sweden.

Email: christel.backman@gu.se

International CriminalJustice Review

ª2021 Georgia State University

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DOI: 10.1177/10575677211020813

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2022, Vol. 32(

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3) 270 290

problems and the utility of BWCs in connection to these. Instead of taking BWC technology for

granted as a self-evident response to crime, misbehavior and other policing problems, we ask what

BWCs are portrayed to be a response to, how links between the use of BWC technology and policing

problems (be they crimes, misbehavior or other types of problems) are expressed or assumed in the

existing BWC research.

As will be shown, BWC technology is assumed to have several positive effects. For example, it

is assumed to deter both police officers and citizens from unwanted and unlawful behavior, and

thereby produce a “civilizing effect,” in turn leading to reductions in police use of force as well as

citizen resistance, violence and complaints. It is also recurrently assumed to help improve pol ice–

community relations. A majority of the BWC research focuses on measurable effects of BWCs,

and systematic meta-reviews of the effects of BWCs have been published (see, e.g., Gaub &

White, 2020; Lum et al., 2020). While we have applied some of the procedures typical of sys-

tematic reviews, our main aim is not to produce conclusions about whether BWC technolog y

“works” or not; nor is it to establish the actual effects of BWCs based on the existing empirical

research. Instead, we aim to shed light on scholars’ grounding assumptions about both contem-

porary policing problems and BWC use and utility, to render visible assumptions and taken-for-

granted truths. In sum, we investigate what policing problems BWCs are depicted to be solutions

to, and how these problems as well as links between the solution (BWCs) and problems are

represented in scholarly work.

Our approach draws on Kraska (2006) and Duffee (2015), who discuss the importance of criminal

justice and crime control phenomena—in our case BWC use as reported in scholarly work—as study

objects in their own right (inquiring into why they are suggested and put into practice in the first

place), rather than as self-evident outcomes or straightforward responses to crime and social

deviance. We furthermore draw on Bacchi (2009, 2012), whose approach to policy analysis encour-

aged us to think about what problems the current deployment of BWCs and development of BWC

policies are supposed to solve as represented in published research work.

The study of criminal justice and crime control phenomena has often been depicted as studies of

“responses” to crime. Arguably, at any point in time there are always different possible ways of

dealing with (policing) problems, depending on how problems are defined and represented (Loseke,

2003). The study of criminal justice and crime control phenomena has furthermore often “been

assigned the limited role of developing the most effective and efficient crime control practices

through applied, policy, and evaluation research” (Kraska, 2006, p. 170; see also Duffee, 2015),

based on the assumption that studying crime control and criminal justice issues is a practical (rather

than theoretical) endeavor “concerned only with the ‘what works’ and ‘how to’ of crime control”

(Kraska, 2006, p. 170). In contrast to the majority of the available BWC research aiming to establish

“what works” in terms of BWCs, we take an interest in societal processes perceived as policing

problems as expressed in scholarly BWC research, which in turn have led scholars to argue for (or

against) the implementation and use of BWCs as a form of criminal justice control. We ask why

BWC technology has become a crime control and criminal justice measure, studied and suggested as

a tool to combat policing problems, as implicated in BWC research and how it is assumed to work,

convinced that studying the why of a crime control and criminal justice measure such as BWCs is

just as important as studying the why of crime and deviance (Becker, 1963; Christie, 2001; Duffee,

2015; Garland, 2001; Kraska, 2006; Simon & Feeley, 1994). Understanding why BWCs have been

implemented and used, and why scholars (by drawing on empirical research) argue for the use of

BWCs, based on certain assumptions about both policing problems and the effects of BWCs, is

crucial for the development of successful reforms to address policing problems (cf. Kraska, 2006,

p. 171). Studying the trend of BWC use and BWC research—and making theoretical sense of this

trend—gives us clues as to how policing practices should and should not be evaluated, and policing

problems addressed, in the contexts where they are taking place.

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Backman and Lo

¨fstrand