A randomized control trial evaluating the effects of police body-worn cameras

David Yokum (), Anita Ravishankar and Alexander Coppock
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David Yokum: The Lab @ DC, Office of the City Administrator, Executive Office of the Mayor, Washington, DC 20004; The Policy Lab, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912
Anita Ravishankar: The Lab @ DC, Office of the City Administrator, Executive Office of the Mayor, Washington, DC 20004; Executive Office of the Chief of Police, Metropolitan Police Department, Washington, DC 20024; Public Policy and Political Science Joint PhD Program, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Alexander Coppock: Department of Political Science, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2019, vol. 116, issue 21, 10329-10332

Abstract: Police body-worn cameras (BWCs) have been widely promoted as a technological mechanism to improve policing and the perceived legitimacy of police and legal institutions, yet evidence of their effectiveness is limited. To estimate the effects of BWCs, we conducted a randomized controlled trial involving 2,224 Metropolitan Police Department officers in Washington, DC. Here we show that BWCs have very small and statistically insignificant effects on police use of force and civilian complaints, as well as other policing activities and judicial outcomes. These results suggest we should recalibrate our expectations of BWCs’ ability to induce large-scale behavioral changes in policing, particularly in contexts similar to Washington, DC.

Keywords: body-worn cameras; field experiments; policing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nas:journl:v:116:y:2019:p:10329-10332

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