Police-worn body cameras are on everyone’s minds. The volume of bystander footage that captures violent, and too often fatal, police clashes steadily ticks upward. The most recent case involves police officer Cpl. Eric Casebolt, who was filmed using flagrantly excessive force trying to control a group of teenagers at a pool party in McKinney, Texas. Casebolt has since resigned.
Viral videos of beaten or dead bodies resulting from police custody add up: Freddie Gray. McKinney. Charly Keunang. Phillip White. Walter Scott.
Christian Science Monitor posited whether the clash in McKinney would have been different if body camera use was widely implemented.
But while research has shown that violent police encounters decline significantly with proper, consistent and widespread body cam use, the answer to whether that psychological effect saves more lives is a complicated and probable no.
“This is one of those circumstances where the practical aspects conflict with the psychological aspects,” said Laurence Miller, PhD, a police psychologist with the West Palm Beach (Florida) Police Department. “When body cams are used and on, police officers find other ways to deescalate a situation. They still use necessary force, they do their jobs.”
Police killed an estimated 1,039 people in 2014, and between 385 and 464 in May.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution Wednesday pushing local law enforcement agencies to adopt body cams. The symbolic measure passed with a voice vote initiated by Reps. Al Green (D-TX) and Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO), who asked House Speaker John Boehner to pass legislation to show Congress is “paying attention.”
Body cams are sometimes called on as a way to make police accountable for their actions, serving as a behavior-modifying deterrent for both police officers and citizens who know they are being recorded. However, their primary usefulness is as evidence.
“Police body cam footage is just a form of evidence in a situation. It’s going to have advantages and disadvantages,” said Chad Marlow, advocacy and policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union in New York. “In any given situation, the more evidence the better,” whether it’s video captured by multiple bystanders or by police.
“If you can have both [bystander and police footage] instead of one or the other it can only be more helpful,” Marlow said. “They are a piece of evidence that may be superior or inferior,” in the context of a criminal case.
But body camera use shouldn’t be expected to prevent violent police interactions.
“The psychological aspect, the idea of being under observation, on trial or constantly under surveillance can have a demoralizing effect,” Miller said. “There’s something galling and grating about being watched.”
“The whole issue of body cameras came up in response to police use of force. And unfortunately, because that’s the way it came out, it’s perceived as adversarial [by police],” Miller said. “To barrel in and impose body cameras on police officers is the wrong way to do it.”
And even when body cams are fully adapted with uniform guidelines across the country, Miller believes that won’t change the psyche or behavior of a police officer.
“I don’t think once it becomes established practice I don’t think it will deter police action, but will occasionally deter extreme police action,” Miller said. “In McKinney, the officer I’m sure justified to himself that his actions were necessary. Excessive force is beyond what is necessary to preserve safety. Even if it’s a flick on the head, it’s excessive. And ultimately video recordings are not going to deter police,” from doing what they think is necessary at the time, “but will deter against frivolous charges of abuse.”
The rise in the public’s readiness to survey police, coupled with the legislative push for cameras on every officer, beg the question of whether cameras actually change minds and save lives.
Marlow compared the fatal shooting of Walter Scott by a police officer in Charleston, South Carolina in March to the deadly chokehold death of Staten Islander Eric Garner, whose killing spurred a second wave of nationwide protests against police brutality against people of color.
“When you watch the [Walter Scott] video, that the police didn’t realize he was being recorded. If he had known he was being recorded, would he have changed his behavior? Would he have fatalolly shot him, planted evidence [of the Taser]?”
Saving a life really is the ultimate hope of body cameras’ potential, he said. While they’re already helpful in providing a record of an incident, he said, “it would be a far bigger win if it deterred the negative encounter instead of capturing it.”