Officer-related Outcomes Associated with Body-Worn Camera Adoption in Milwaukee, WI

• In Event: New Findings from the Smart Policing Initiative #2

Abstract

Milwaukee has the fourth highest violent crime rate in the U.S., an overall poverty rate of 30 percent, and particularly strained police-community relations in recent years. Following a high-profile officer-involved shooting in the city and several other events across the country, the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) came under acute community scrutiny and political pressure to increase transparency in its department and improve its relations with the community. In October, 2015, the MPD joined the Smart Policing Initiative to fund and evaluate its deployment of Body-worn Cameras (BWCs) among all patrol officers by the end of 2016. The Urban Institute has been an active research partner in the deployment and is conducting an in-depth evaluation, which includes a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of 504 officers and a quasi-experimental (QED) study of all 1,100 patrol officers who received BWCs after the department-wide rollout. The current presentation will offer findings on the impact of BWCs on a range of officer-related outcomes, including: overall and types of use of force; citizen complaints and dispositions of these complaints; and officer behaviors, including stops, arrest, and proactive activities.

Authors

• Bryce Peterson, Urban Institute

• Daniel S Lawrence, RTI International, Policing Research Program

• Lilly Yu, Urban Institute