Body-worn camera (BWC) footage in criminal proceedings - valuable evidence or problematic curiosity? Research based evaluation

• In Event: POLWG Panel 1: The Role of Police Body-Worn Cameras in Contemporary Criminal Justice

Abstract

Body-worn cameras (BWC) are small devices, designed to record video and audio, placed on a law enforcement officer's uniform and intended to document the course of duty in an overt way. They have now become a standard piece of police equipment in many countries, including Poland. It was believed they can achieve various goals in modern policing, among others - secure reliable and unbiased evidence for the criminal proceedings. But is it really so? Academic literature suggests significant problems might be related to such type of evidence: legal controversies, increased workload for the actors of criminal proceedings and psychological biases arising from the camera perspective or redundant contextual information. To date research based exploration of these issues is limited. This paper will present findings of one such research, being conducted by the author. The research is based on the analysis of files of criminal cases from police units, prosecutor’s offices and courts in Poland. It shows that the audiovisual evidence from BWCs is generally accepted by the actors of criminal proceedings. Often it features high quality footage depicting events or showing contextual information. On the other hand - in some cases the excessive amount of irrelevant recordings is presented, thus increasing the workload without benefit to the aims of criminal proceedings. What is most notable though - such evidence is available in the extremely rare instances (relative to the total amount of recordings produced with police BWCs). Quantitative data showing such disproportion will be presented, as well as conclusions from the interviews with public prosecutors, that might explain this phenomenon.

Author

• Jędrzej Kupczyński, University of Warsaw (Poland)