Research based evaluation of body-worn camera (BWC) footage as evidence in criminal proceedings. Preliminary findings

• In Event: POL Panel 20. Criminal Justice and AI: Bias, public perception and ethics

Abstract

Body-worn camera (BWC) became a common tool in modern policing. Law enforcement agencies all over the globe tend to use such devices hoping to
reinforce police accountability and ‘cool down’ interactions between officers and members of the public. If it comes to the effectiveness of BWCs’ calming
effect, already conducted research shows mixed results (e.g. Ariel, Barak, William A. Farrar, and Alex Sutherland. 2015. “The Effect of Police Body-Worn
Cameras on Use of Force and Citizens’ Complaints against the Police: A Randomized Controlled Trial.” Journal of Quantitative Criminology 31 (3): 509–35 shows significant calming effect of BWCs while Yokum, David, Anita Ravishankar, and Alexander Coppock. 2019. “A Randomized Control Trial Evaluating the Effects of Police Body-Worn Cameras.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 116 (21): 10329–32 indicates contrary). But still the argument is made that BWCs provide reliable source of evidence. The author conducts research that aims to evaluate actual evidentiary value of BWCs footage in Polish criminal procedure. Preliminary findings show that BWC footage is used extremely rarely in criminal procedure in comparison to the global amount of produced recordings. The evidentiary value of BWC footage is subject to case file analysis, which already shows some procedural and substantive problems with such evidence. The research is currently ongoing, yet this paper aims to present preliminary findings.

Author

• Jędrzej Radosław Kupczyński, University of Warsaw (Poland)