Police use of body-worn video technology in the UK: A socio-technical analysis of change

• In Event: POL Panel 7. Police and the use of body-worn video

Abstract

This presentation discusses core findings of a doctoral study which examined the ways in which police in the United Kingdom (England and Wales) and body-worn video (BWV) technology shape one another. These findings emerge from a sociotechnical approach which gave equal consideration to both the social and technical elements involved in the shaping process. By paying sufficient attention to the technical elements of BWV technology such as the device lens, recording functionality, mobile connectivity as well as the footage management software and the interoperability of its ancillary systems, novel findings emerge around usage practices and the implications of technological advancement. This study was able to identify interesting ways in which BWV technology adoption, expansion, and development shaped a policing organisation on an institutional, managerial, and individual (behavioural) level. It also covers the ways in which policing, within a specific regional context, shaped the way BWV technology is selected, used, and subsequently re-designed. The presentation provides implications surrounding BWV technological design and the ways in which BWV technology is understood and regulated. It concludes by adding to a growing symphony of voices which call for criminologists to adopt more sociotechnical/material approaches when researching the impacts of technology on society, bringing the discipline more in line with the developments in Science and Technology Studies and the more critical elements of Feminist Technoscience.

Author

• Jean-Pierre Roux, University of Glasgow and University of Edinburgh