City Research Online

Abstract

Police body-worn cameras (BWC) have become the latest technological device introduced to policing on a wave of panacean promises. Recent research has reported the perspectives of police officers, police management, and the general public, but there have been no studies examining the views of police arrestees. Remedying this significant omission, this article presents findings generated from interviews with 907 individuals shortly after their arrest. Overall, we report a strong in principle support for police body-worn cameras amongst this cohort, particularly if the cameras can be operated impartially. The findings are organised into a trilogy of prominent and interrelated concerns voiced by the police detainees, namely the potential for the manipulation, modification, and misrepresentation of events captured by police body-worn cameras. The findings are discussed in a broader context of the “new visibility” of police encounters and contribute much needed findings to understand the culturally specific ways in which different publics experience and respond to visual surveillance.

Publication Type:	Article
Publisher Keywords:	This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare T Technology
Departments:	School of Policy & Global Affairs > Sociology & Criminology
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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