Research on Body Worn Cameras

• Published date: 01 September 2016
• Date: 01 September 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1098611116658595
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Research on Body

Worn Cameras:

Meeting the Challenges

of Police Operations,

Program

Implementation, and

Randomized Controlled

Trial Designs

William H. Sousa

1

, James R. Coldren Jr.

2

,

Denise Rodriguez

2

,and

Anthony A. Braga

3

Abstract

As police departments across the United States equip officers with body worn cam-

eras (BWCs), research has focused on the technology’s impact on police interactions

with citizens, officer misconduct, officer use of force, and false allegations against

police. Given the large number of police agencies implementing BWCs across the

country (numbering in the thousands), there will be a growing number of opportu-

nities for BWC evaluations and expectations that these programs will be evaluated.

Studying the implementation of BWCs presents a number of challenges to both

researchers and police agencies, particularly when large police organizations are

involved. Drawing on our experiences involving a BWC experiment with the Las

Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, this article discusses the programmatic chal-

lenges of implementing a BWC program in a large agency (technical, political, and

1

Center for Crime and Justice Policy, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV, USA

2

Safety and Security Division, CNA Institute for Public Research, Arlington, VA, USA

3

School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA

Corresponding Author:

William H. Sousa, Center for Crime and Justice Policy, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 4505 S.

Maryland Parkway, Box 5009, Las Vegas, NV 89154-5009, USA.

Email: william.sousa@unlv.edu

Police Quarterly

2016, Vol. 19(3) 363–384

!The Author(s) 2016

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DOI: 10.1177/1098611116658595

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administrative) while simultaneously evaluating the program using a randomized con-

trolled trial design.

Keywords

body worn camera, randomized controlled trial

Introduction

This article describes a randomized controlled trial (RCT) designed to study

the impact of body worn cameras (BWCs) on police of‌f‌icer behavior in the

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD), a large police agency

with approximately 1,100 police of‌f‌icers assigned to the patrol division. We

discuss the process evaluation component of a National Institute of Justice-

funded research project that entailed both process and impact evaluation

components.

The implementation of BWCs grows at a rapid pace in American police

agencies. In Fall 2015, the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) and the Of‌f‌ice

of Justice Programs (OJP) distributed over $19 million in funding to 73 U.S.

police agencies for the purposes of enhancing or implementing BWC pro-

grams (BJA, 2016a). This funding initiative is part of a 3-year plan of the

White House and the U.S. Department of Justice (2015) to provide over $70

million to police agencies for the implementation of 50,000 BWCs. In May

2015, the National Conference of State Legislatures reported that at least 30

states were considering legislation regarding BWCs, with one-half of them

requiring or recommending the use of BWCs by police (BJA, 2016b). BJA

reports that 4,000 to 6,000 U.S. police agencies have implemented or plan to

implement BWCs (BJA, 2016b).

This anticipated growth in the utilization of BWCs by police brings with it the

expectation and need for basic and applied research regarding the implementa-

tion and use of this technology by police, and regarding the impact of the tech-

nology on police of‌f‌icers, police agencies, civilians, and society in general. The

process evaluation reported in this article addresses the need for applied research

regarding BWCs and may be helpful to researchers and practitioners by provid-

ing information about the challenges encountered when implementing and

studying BWCs in a large police agency, building on Drover and Ariel (2015)

who discuss similar issues regarding BWC experiments. First, we brief‌ly discuss

background on BWCs, BWC implementation, and the RCT methodology.

We then describe the LVMPD BWC experiment while highlighting several

important implementation challenges encountered by the LVMPD and the

research team, including both the challenges of RCTs and the challenges of

BWC implementation in a large police agency. Finally, we discuss how some

of these challenges were overcome and how some still remain.

364 Police Quarterly 19(3)