Citizen Monitoring Re-Visited: The Impact of Citizen Monitoring on Police Use of Justified Force

• In Event: Police Use of Force

Abstract

Citizen monitoring of police officers is an area of increasing importance in law enforcement research. Law enforcement officials have been profoundly impacted by the practice of citizens recording their actions (Todd, 2015). Footage recorded of officers conducting their work either properly or improperly and the subsequent uploading of the same footage onto the Internet has had marked effects on members of the force (Todd, 2015). Interviews conducted in 2014 indicate that citizen monitoring contributed to officers using less justified force than is both required and is necessary in a given situation, to the “hesitation factor”, which purports that officers hesitate when they should act, and to officers embodying the FIDO effect.
This study offers a re-examination of the phenomenon of citizen monitoring and its impact on police use of justified force two years after the initial interviews were conducted. Given the ever-changing landscape of policing and the rapidly increasing presence of technology within society, further exploration of the phenomenon of citizen monitoring was necessary. In particular, this study addresses whether officers are less likely to use necessary and legitimate force when faced with the possibility of being subject to citizen monitoring, and considers differences between the 2014 and 2016 findings.

Author

• Hilary Ellen Marta Todd, Simon Fraser University