Crime and the Candid Camera? An Examination of the Effects of Police Surveillance Technologies on Public Safety

• In Event: Police, Cameras, and Visual Surveillance

Abstract

Despite the rapid adoption of video camera technology among American law enforcement agencies (LEAs) in the past 15 years, little research exists examining the effects of video camera technology on police performance at the jurisdiction level. The current project examines a number of empirical questions that flow from the assumptions about the benefits of camera technology to public safety and the police enterprise: 1) Do video cameras increase public safety through deterrence of crime, 2) Do video cameras increase LEA productivity in clearing cases by arrest, and 3) Do video cameras increase LEA safety by reducing police-citizen interactions that result in assault? These questions will be answered using data on a series of panel samples of all large law enforcement agencies (those with at least 100 full-time equivalent sworn officers) using Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) survey data from 1997, 2000, 2003, and 2007 coupled with Uniform Crime Report (UCR) data on offenses known and clearances by police during the same time period.

Author

• Kirk Miller, Northern Illinois University