Bodycams: New (In-)Visibility of Policing in Germany

• In Event: POL Panel 21. Body Worn Cameras & Organizational Flexibility

Abstract

In recent years, police authorities in Germany have increasingly implemented body-worn cameras into daily-police work. Through audiovisual documentation of police-citizen interac-tion, they are meant to simplify the retrospective (legal) processing of violent crimes. Howev-er, the approach of German police forces in their justification of body worn cameras is unique, especially when compared to countries in which body cameras have long been established, e.g., the United States. From the German perspective, body worn cameras are supposed to prevent violence against police officers, since the awareness of being recorded is presumed to have a deterring effect on citizens. Remarkably, this justification focuses on authorities, while other aspects such as protection of citizens from police violence, the approach followed in the US, play virtually no role or are actively rejected by German police authorities, e.g. police unions.
A newly found public consciousness towards police violence in Germany has sparked debate over the use of body-worn cameras and a recent case from Munich shows how crucial their evidence can be in cases of (suspected) police violence by the police. The case in ques-tion from February 2020 shows a federal police officer kneeling for minutes on the neck of a man suspected of travelling with an invalid local train ticket and defending himself against this suspicion. The scene was filmed with a bodycam and leaked online. Against the back-ground of this case, our paper will discuss how police deal with these recordings, process them, and the extent to which affected citizens – as (potential) perpetrators and victims – can access the recordings. Importantly, we ask how body cam recordings can be used in court and how it can be ensured, that the respective recordings show (uncut) excerpts relevant to the violent situation under discussion.

Authors

• Simon Egbert, Bielefeld University

• Tom Berger, Bielefeld University