Research supported by SSHRC ANY BODY COULD BE WATCHING: POLICING WITH BODY WORN VIDEO IN THE CANADIAN PRAIRIES
1 OVERVIEW ▸ Research question, study participants, methodology ▸ Account ability as a concept (Ericson, 1995) ▸ Factors affecting account ability in Pierson Hill ▸ Challenges in police-focused research
2 RESEARCH QUESTION, PARTICIPANTS & METHODOLOGY ▸ Pierson Hill Protective Services ▸ 6 officers ▸ Introducing BWV, already using IVV (define) ▸ Research question: How do officers in Pierson Hill County, Canada, make sense of and use the new visibility created by body worn video (BWV) and in-vehicle video (IVV) in the context of their work? ▸ Methodology: ▸ Interviews, media-assisted interviews, observation
3 SELECTED FINDINGS ▸ 1) Officers identified that there were many benefits as well as downsides to using both IVV and BWV ▸ 2) Several key benefits and downsides of the technologies relate to how they change officer's ability to explain "what really happened" ▸ Richard Ericson, "account ability" ▸ Account ability : "the capacity to provide a record of activities that explains them in a a credible manner so that they appear to satisfy the rights and obligations of accountability" (Ericson, 1995,p.137) ▸ Account ability matters! Video technologies change the account ability of all who are recorded
4 ACCOUNT ABILITY IN PIERSON HILL ▸ Contingent on many factors ▸ Identified a number of factors which were relevant in Pierson Hill ▸ Technological, social, legal, organizational ▸ In each category, certain elements can have positive or negative effects, or both positive AND negative effects on officer account ability
5 SOCIAL FACTORS ▸ North American society perceive video as truthful ▸ This perspective means officers can supplement their accounts "objectively" ▸ "Showing rather than telling" ▸ Allows others to make judgements based on their own perceptions of a situation ▸ Audiences from different social backgrounds may interpret the same content quite differently and disagree about the content (Kahan, Hoffman & Braman, 2009) ▸ May be helpful or harmful
6 TECHNOLOGICAL FACTORS ▸ Footage can range from very clear to completely useless ▸ Distance from camera, angles, whether or not the camera began recording ▸ Beneficial- Footage may clearly show key details which strongly corroborate an officer's narrative ▸ Harmful- Footage may not capture any (or few) of the details necessary to provide clarity ▸ opens possibility for allegations that the officer intentionally caused this, harmful to credibility
7 LEGAL FACTORS ▸ Beneficial: Legal process provides an opportunity for the officer to supplement video with narrative ▸ Plays a significant role in how audiences will interpret the footage ▸ Harmful: Legal process provides the accused/defence to provide a competing narrative ▸ While rare, an unusual defence was raised
8 ORGANIZATIONAL FACTORS ▸ Policy dictates that IVV is used for all traffic stops initiated while driving a patrol vehicle. (No policy exists for BWV use) ▸ Beneficial: IVV-Officers will almost always have video when they need it ▸ Harmful: creates an expectation of video being present, meaning its absence can severely damage officer credibility ▸ Beneficial: Officers are able to create notes while reviewing footage, meaning a close fit between testimony, reports, and video
9 CONCLUSION ▸ Video technologies introduce a change to account ability, but the effect they can create is contingent on other factors ▸ Currently, these types of factors align to improve officer's account ability vastly more often than not ▸ Implications: practitioners should consider video technologies as a tool of communication which will change how they and others can make claims about events ▸ Effects of video will not be as simple as whether or not a camera takes clear video
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