Representatives from several Austin-based organizations that focus on criminal justice, accountable government and privacy rights said this week they support equipping police officers with body cameras, but said the department needs to clarify its policy regarding the circumstances it will release video to the public. Other cities have reported decreases in aggressive behaviour towards police wearing the cameras and fewer complaints of police violence.
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For the new study criminologists worked with eight police forces across the United States and UK – including West Midlands, Cambridgeshire and Northern Ireland’s PSNI – to conduct ten randomised-controlled trials.
The findings were published on Wednesday in the European Journal of Criminology and the Journal of Experimental Criminology. Sutherland said it was important to make their results public since body cameras are becoming increasingly topical. “With a camera running, officers may be more willing to report assaults against them”.
“Police are already spending probably billions on cameras worldwide”. However, the researchers point out these are just possible explanations, and much more work is needed to unpick the reasons behind these surprising findings.
“I think the community is exhausted of not being able to say whether they were innocent and whether or not the police officer was wrong”, Ayers said.
The College of Policing, which has drawn up guidelines for the use of the cameras in Britain, urged caution on the findings, saying its own research found the devices led to a 33 per cent in allegations of misconduct against officers with no effect on officer safety.
“I’ve never seen any of the footage and we locked the system down, but from what I’ve been told, the videos captured officers in the locker room and using the facilities”, Round Lake Park Police Chief George Filenko told the newspaper.
Over the ten trials, the research team found that rates of assault against officers wearing cameras on their shift were an average of 15% higher, compared to shifts without cameras.
The council’s decision will come two days after a grand jury decided not to indict former Austin police officer Geoffrey Freeman for the February 8 killing of 17-year-old David Joseph. This research importantly highlights the need for police to keep their cameras rolling at all times.
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The rest of the equipment will be put to use in August, he said.
