The conversation
Police and civilians disagree about when the footage of the body’s camera should be made public
When should the public be able to see what this camera captures? AP Photo / Damian DovarganesMany police chiefs and ordinary American civilians agree that footage of the police corps should be released to the public after the police shoot someone. They differ, however, on when the images should be made public. This complicates obtaining accountability, which is often the reason police officers use cameras. This is the conclusion of our new research, published by Cambridge University Press. We surveyed 4,000 residents in the United States – 1,000 across the country and 1,000 in each of the three cities – Los Angeles, Seattle and Charlotte – who are often cited as having different policies for releasing body camera footage. We asked the participants if they identified themselves as white, black, Hispanic or Asian. We also surveyed 1,000 police chiefs across the country. In June 2020, weeks after George Floyd’s death while in the custody of the Minneapolis police, the Pew Research Center reported that “78% of Americans in general – but a much smaller proportion of blacks (56%) – said they had at least least a good deal of confidence in the police to act in the public’s best interest. ”These findings are consistent with other research that also reveals that race is a factor that influences Americans’ confidence in the police. We randomly show footage from police chiefs’ body cameras and smartphone footage from a fatal shooting. We randomly showed the 4,000 people who searched camera images of a police officer shooting at a person or why they were unable to see the images and then asked if, how and when the images should be made public. We find very little geographic variation in citizens’ expectations of police behavior and trust in the police to use force properly. But we found that ordinary people and police chiefs differed in some of their opinions about body camera recordings. People from all over the country, including in the three cities we focus on, generally wanted the footage to be made public. More than 9 out of 10 respondents think so. And the vast majority of police chiefs – just under 9 out of 10 – agreed. But in addition, there were noticeable differences in people’s opinions of when and how the video should be released. A plurality of all groups – across the country and in each city, and when separated by race – were content to wait to see the raw images until an internal police investigation was completed. The Los Angeles Police Department releases narrated and edited videos of police shootings. Overall, an average of 39% of the 4,000 citizens felt this way. Almost half of the police chiefs – 48.7% – did so. Non-whites were less willing to wait for an internal investigation to be completed before seeing the footage. For citizens, the next preferred method of viewing the footage was to release the raw video immediately after the event, with between a quarter and a third of people looking for it. Only about one in five citizens preferred to see the edited video that was cut and narrated to help explain to viewers what the police were doing. But the idea of an edited video appealed to police chiefs, who preferred this to an immediate release of unedited images. If body cameras are going to help improve police accountability, then it is important that police chiefs and the public agree on how and when the images will be released. [Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.]This article was republished from The Conversation, a non-profit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Dan Bromberg, University of New Hampshire and Étienne Charbonneau, École nationale d’administration publique (ENAP). Read more: High-tech surveillance amplifies police prejudice and overcomes what the police response to the KKK in the 1960s can teach about dismantling white supremacist groups today Dan Bromberg received funding as an Insight Grant contributor (# 435-2020- 1013) and support from the Canada Research Chairs program, both from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Etienne Charbonneau received an Insight Grant (# 435-2020-1013) and support from the Canada Research Chairs program, both from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.