Evaluating the impact of police officer body-worn cameras (BWCs) on response-to-resistance and serious external complaints: Evidence from the Orlando police department (OPD) experience utilizing a randomized controlled experiment

Many RCTs and quasi-experimental evaluations report large reductions in citizen complaints of inappropriate police behavior and misconduct when BWCs are deployed on officers relative to non-BWC-wearing counterparts.

“Many randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and quasi-experimental evaluations report large reductions in citizen complaints of inappropriate police behavior and misconduct when BWCs are deployed on officers relative to non-BWC-wearing counterparts (e.g., Ariel et al., 2015;Braga et al., 2018;Jennings et al., 2015), whereas a smaller number does not find any noteworthy impacts (e.g., White et al., 2”

BWCs reduce complaints against officers to nearly zero (93% average reduction).

“BWCs have been found to (a) reduce complaints against officers to nearly zero (93% average reduction”

BWCs reduce the use of force by up to 50%.

“reduce the use of force by up to 50%”

Participating officers in person-based BWC experiments have been volunteering officers.

“the participating officers in the person-based BWCs experiments have been volunteering officers (Jennings et al. 2015; see also Ready and Young 2015).”

SUTVA concerns are less of a problem in this research design than in experiments in which the unit of analysis is the individual officer.

“We assert that these SUTV A concerns are less of a problem in our research design than in experiments in which the unit of analysis is the individual officer (e.g., Jennings et al. 2015).”

BWCs reduce overall assaults against officers by nearly two-thirds on the before-after comparisons across most sites.

“as shown here, reduce overall assaults against officers by nearly two-thirds on the before -after comparisons across most sites”

The credible deterrent effect of BWCs may rest on four critical points: the camera is actually worn by the officer, turned on, used during the police-public encounter, and suspects are fully cognizant of the BWC (e.g., through officers announcing recording).

“These studies suggest that the credible deterrent effect of BWCs may rest on four critical points: that the camera is (i) actually worn by the officer, (ii) turned on, and (iii) used during the police -public encounter. It also requires that (iv) suspects are fully cognizant of the BWC, for instance through officers announcing to the suspect that the interaction is being officially recorded.”

Jennings et al. (2015) found that BWCs reduced response-to-resistance incidents and serious external complaints, with prevalence significantly less for officers randomly assigned to wear BWCs.

“The study has shown that BWCs reduced these types of incidents and serious external complaints.”