Using Body Worn Camera Footage to Investigate Predictors of Officer Behavior and the Outcomes of Police–Community Interactions

• Published date: 01 March 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10986111231169788
• Author: Lois James,Stephen James
• Date: 01 March 2024
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Police Quarterly

2024, Vol. 27(1) 53–79

© The Author(s) 2023

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DOI: 10.1177/10986111231169788

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Using Body Worn Camera

Footage to Investigate

Predictors of Off‌icer Behavior

and the Outcomes of

Police–Community

Interactions

Lois James

1

and Stephen James

2

Abstract

The objective of this study was to use interval-level metrics to code a random sample of

body worn camera footage from a large (N∼700) municipal police department in

2019. Just over 1,100 videos were coded for (1) community member factors; (2) off‌icer

behaviors—including an overall “performance”score; and (3) encounter outcomes.

Our goal was to answer the following: Do police receive higher overall performance

scores when interacting with some types of community members compared to others?

Which community member factors signif‌icantly predict specif‌icoff‌icer behaviors?

Which community member factors signif‌icantly predict encounter outcomes? We

found that off‌icers received higher performance scores when interacting with women,

and with community members with mental illness. We found that socio-economic-

status and gender were the most common predictors of off‌icer behaviors, while race

and ethnicity, socio-economic-status, gender, and armed status predicted encounter

outcomes. The policy implications of these f‌indings are discussed.

1

Washington State University, College of Nursing, Health Sciences Campus, Spokane, WA, USA

2

Washington State University, Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine, Health Sciences Campus, Spokane, WA,

USA

Corresponding Author:

Lois James, Washington State University, College of Nursing, Health Sciences Campus, 412 E Spokane Falls

Blvd, Spokane, WA 99202, USA.

Email: lois_james@wsu.edu

Keywords

police behavior, body worn cameras, coding metrics, police-community relationships,

police legitimacy

Introduction

The question of what predicts how off‌icers treat community members has long been

debated in the criminal justice literature (Crawford & Burns, 1998;Engel et al., 2000;

Hine et al., 2019;Lee, 2016;Madon & Murphy, 2021;Nix et al., 2017;Terrill& Reisi g,

2003). Most of this research has investigated how community member factors (e.g.,

race, socio-economic-status, demeanor), environmental factors (e.g., neighborhood

context, presence of weapons), or off‌icer factors (e.g., race, gender, fatigue) inf‌luence

outcomes such as use of force, injuries, arrests, or community-member complaints. A

growing body of research however is examining predictors of off‌icer performance or

behavior, for example whether off‌icers are more inclined to use de-escalation, crisis

intervention, or procedural justice with some types of community members versus with

others (Broussard et al., 2010;James et al., 2018;Mazerolle et al., 2013). In the pursuit

of holding off‌icers accountable, it is important to not just consider the outcomes of

police-community member encounters—which an off‌icer may or may not have control

over—but to examine the specif‌ic things an off‌icer did or said during the encounter.

Most of the prior research on what predicts both outcomes of police-community

member encounters or off‌icers’actions within those encounters relies upon incident

report data (Gau et al., 2010;James et al., 2019;Lange et al., 2005), observations from

police ride alongs (Terrill & Reisig, 2003;Todak & James, 2018;Worden & McLean,

2014), or laboratory-based studies (Correll & Keesee, 2009;James et al., 2016). Each

of these data-collection methods offers advantages, however they suffer from potential

lack of contextual information (incident report data), substantial resources required,

observer effects (ride alongs), and limited real-world applicability (laboratory studies).

Body Worn Cameras (BWCs) provide an alternative approach for analyzing how police

perform during encounters with the public, as well as investigating what factors might

inf‌luence the outcomes of these encounters. Researchers are starting to take advantage

of BWC footage to assess off‌icer behavior such as incivility (Holladay & Makin, 2021)

and adherence to procedural justice standards (Sytsma et al., 2021).

Although BWC footage offers a potentially rich data source for police researchers, it

is not without its limitations, and depends heavily on the coding tool by which to

“score”or “rate”off‌icer behavior. One such tool was developed by Vila and colleagues

(2018). Our goal here was to use this tool to code BWC footage of police-community

interactions for three distinct groups of factors: community member facto rs, off‌icer

behaviors (from which we calculated an overall “performance”score), and encounter

outcomes.

1

Before describing our methodology and results we provide a summary of

the research literature that has led to this point. This includes a brief review of: (1) the

f‌indings on which community member factors (such as race, socio-economic-status, or

54 Police Quarterly 27(1)