POLICING WITH BODY WORN VIDEO IN THE CANADIAN PRAIRIES 1 - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

POLICING WITH BODY WORN VIDEO IN THE CANADIAN PRAIRIES

ANY BODY COULD BE WATCHING:

Research supported by SSHRC

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OVERVIEW

▸ Research question, study participants, methodology ▸ Account ability as a concept (Ericson, 1995) ▸ Factors affecting account ability in Pierson Hill ▸ Challenges in police-focused research

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RESEARCH QUESTION, PARTICIPANTS & METHODOLOGY

▸ Pierson Hill Protective Services ▸ 6 officers ▸ Introducing BWV, already using IVV (define) ▸ Research question: How do officers in Pierson Hill County, Canada,

make sense of and use the new visibility created by body worn video (BWV) and in-vehicle video (IVV) in the context of their work?

▸ Methodology: ▸ Interviews, media-assisted interviews, observation

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SELECTED FINDINGS

▸ 1) Officers identified that there were many benefits as well as downsides

to using both IVV and BWV

▸ 2) Several key benefits and downsides of the technologies relate to how

they change officer's ability to explain "what really happened"

▸ Richard Ericson, "account ability" ▸ Account ability : "the capacity to provide a record of activities that

explains them in a a credible manner so that they appear to satisfy the rights and obligations of accountability" (Ericson, 1995,p.137)

▸ Account ability matters! Video technologies change the account ability of

all who are recorded

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ACCOUNT ABILITY IN PIERSON HILL

▸ Contingent on many factors ▸ Identified a number of factors which were relevant in Pierson

Hill

▸ Technological, social, legal, organizational ▸ In each category, certain elements can have positive or

negative effects, or both positive AND negative effects on

• fficer account ability

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SOCIAL FACTORS

▸ North American society perceive video as truthful ▸ This perspective means officers can supplement their accounts "objectively" ▸ "Showing rather than telling" ▸ Allows others to make judgements based on their own perceptions of a situation ▸ Audiences from different social backgrounds may interpret the same content

quite differently and disagree about the content (Kahan, Hoffman & Braman, 2009)

▸ May be helpful or harmful

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TECHNOLOGICAL FACTORS

▸ Footage can range from very clear to completely useless ▸ Distance from camera, angles, whether or not the camera began

recording

▸ Beneficial- Footage may clearly show key details which strongly

corroborate an officer's narrative

▸ Harmful- Footage may not capture any (or few) of the details

necessary to provide clarity

▸ opens possibility for allegations that the officer intentionally

caused this, harmful to credibility

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LEGAL FACTORS

▸ Beneficial: Legal process provides an opportunity for the

• fficer to supplement video with narrative

▸ Plays a significant role in how audiences will interpret the

footage

▸ Harmful: Legal process provides the accused/defence to

provide a competing narrative

▸

While rare, an unusual defence was raised

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ORGANIZATIONAL FACTORS

▸ Policy dictates that IVV is used for all traffic stops initiated while

driving a patrol vehicle. (No policy exists for BWV use)

▸ Beneficial: IVV-Officers will almost always have video when they

need it

▸ Harmful: creates an expectation of video being present, meaning

its absence can severely damage officer credibility

▸ Beneficial: Officers are able to create notes while reviewing

footage, meaning a close fit between testimony, reports, and video

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CONCLUSION

▸ Video technologies introduce a change to account ability, but the

effect they can create is contingent on other factors

▸ Currently, these types of factors align to improve officer's account

ability vastly more often than not

▸ Implications: practitioners should consider video technologies as a

tool of communication which will change how they and others can make claims about events

▸ Effects of video will not be as simple as whether or not a

camera takes clear video

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