Promise of Police Body-Worn Cameras
![handle is hein.journals/crpp18 and id is 121 raw text is:
DOI: 10.1111/1745-9133.12420 CRIMINOLOGY
POLICY ESSAY ( Public Policy
RESEARCH ON BODY-WORN CAMERAS
Promise of police body-worn cameras*
Aili Malm
California State University, Long Beach
Correspondence
Aili Malm, School of Criminology, Criminal Justice and Emergency Management, California State University, Long Beach, 1250
Bellflower Blvd., Long Beach, CA 90803.
Email: Aili.Malm@csulb.edu
* Acknowledgment: I would like to thank Jerry Ratcliffe for his extremely helpful suggestions and comments.
As Cynthia Lum, Megan Stoltz, Christopher Koper, and Amber Scherer (2019, this issue) point out, the
amount of research on police body-worn cameras (BWCs) has dramatically increased in the last 5 years.
This upsurge culminated in the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing's (2015) focus on
BWCs and increased funding for research. And although politics and money definitely played a role,
another factor driving the increase in the number of studies was the air of skepticism surrounding the
technology. Critics warned that any benefit of BWCs might be outweighed by costs, such as loss of
privacy, excessive financial burden, tension between officers and management, and reduced police
activity. This tone of caution continues to pervade police and academic discussions of BWCs.
The rush of research opportunities has run counter to traditional academic caution. This caution
originates in scientific skepticism, where claims lacking sufficient empirical evidence are subject to
rigorous scrutiny, tested, and re-tested using the scientific method. This is not a bad thing-scientific
skepticism has fueled progress and debate, and it has led to groundbreaking discoveries throughout
history. Even the most ardent promoters of the scientific method, however, have argued that too much
skepticism can hinder progress;
Too much openness and you accept every notion, idea, and hypothesis-which is tanta-
mount to knowing nothing. Too much skepticism [...] and you're not only unpleasantly
grumpy, but also closed to the advance of science. A judicious mix is what we need.
(Sagan, 1995: 30)
Finding that judicious mix has been the challenge to date. In their comprehensive narrative review,
Lum et al. (2019) state that, BWCs have not had statistically significant or consistent effects on most
measures of officer and citizen behavior or citizens' views of police, and they go on to illustrate the
inconsistent results and research gaps. It may be worth examining the potential reasons for these results
in greater depth.
1 I ASSESSING BWC EVIDENCE USING THE EMMIE
FRAMEWORK
Policing has long been considered a craft in which experience outweighs all else (Willis, 2013). With
the emergence of evidence-based policing (EBP), however, science is starting to play a greater role in
Criminology & Public Policy. 2019;18:119-130. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/capp © 2019 American Society of Criminology I 119](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/crpp18&div=15&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Promise of Police Body-Worn Cameras
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