Vanguard Magazine

18 FEBRUARY/MARCH 2017 www.vanguardcanada.com securItY s these favourable results. The concluding recommendations were that more controlled, replicable research was required. More recently in 2016, the same author of the Rialto study, Barak Ariel, conducted the largest body-worn camera study on seven law enforcement organizations. Preliminary findings sug- gested that the overall effect on police use of force 4 was "a wash": in some instances, body-worn cameras reduced use of force but in others they didn't and may have exacerbated behaviours and increased use of force — results were inconsistent and perplex- ing. 5 However, in the final report, complaints by the public were reduced substantially — in one case to zero. Again, some of the above factors were raised as caveats to the findings. The impor- tance of this is that relying on outcomes that are more correlative that causal, or more of a placebo in their factors, can set expecta- tions artificially high and suggest a cost-benefit that may not exist at the moment. It is clear the effectiveness of body-worn cameras will depend on the organization, its stated uses and goals, mea- surements and success criteria, and the rigorous execution of the pilot and/or adoption of the program. In short, the value of body-worn camera technology as a tool for law enforcement organizations must be derived from cost ben- efit and return on investment. In the case of the Vancouver Police Department, the benefit could not be justified; they shelved their 600 unit body-worn camera program due to the $17 million price tag for equipment, data storage and video recovery. It may be that waiting for the technology to "mature" is not the answer, and looking beyond current technologies may be the game-changer. For example, the Calgary Police Services addressed their data storage cost issue by using an older technology — storage tapes — that reduced costs to about $1 million. Likewise, creative use of the video and upload technology quickly met the needs of civil rights groups and the public for police oversight with apps, such as "Hands Up for Justice." These are free, available online, and allow for recording and immediate uploading to YouTube or a Dropbox account. As far as the acceptance of the technology by the public and by officers, most research shows high support, but concerns over pri- vacy exist for both, and some officers and unions express concern over operational and practical impediments. Some have suggested "what's good for the goose is good for the gander": if patrol is equipped with body-cameras during their shifts, so should the ex- ecutives (doubtful the Chiefs will be lining up for that!). In the end, regardless of whether it's the U.S. or Canada, mar- rying the operational needs of law enforcement with the capabili- ties of body-worn camera technology, as well as interoperability and scalability with emerging technologies, like biometrics, voice recognition, telemetry and intelligence databases, may reveal a much more robust and effective tool than originally anticipated. At the moment, Canadian law enforcement organizations are in a prime position to take a collaborative stance, glean from lessons learned in the U.S. and UK, and lead innovation with their vendors. While affordability, adaptability and policy may be current barriers to adopting body-worn camera technology, the cost of complacen- cy may be higher, should the tail be left to wag the dog. references: 1. The White House Blog, President Obama's Plan to Strengthen Community Policing: http://www.whitehouse. gov/blog/2014/12/01/building-trust-between-communi- ties-and-local-police 2. AXON Flex Evaluation, ISSUU.com; Mesa, AZ: http:// issuu.com/leerankin6/docs/final_axon_flex_evalua- tion_12-3-13- 3. Ready, Justin T. and Young, Jacob T. N.; The impact of on-officer video cameras on police–citizen contacts: find- ings from a controlled experiment in Mesa, AZ, http:// centerformediajustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/ The-Impact-of-On-officer-Video-Cameras-on-Police-Citzen- Contacts-JEC.pdf 4. Ariel, Barak, Article: Do Police Body cameras Really Work?, Spectrum - IEEE, May 2016: http://spectrum.ieee.org/ consumer-electronics/portable-devices/do-police-body- cameras-really-work 5. Preliminary Report on "Contagious Accountability": http://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/portable- devices/do-police-body-cameras-really-work This article is based on a report written by Valarie Findlay, which was an unsanctioned and independent review and analysis of ex- isting literature on body-worn camera technology, found here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/ 312234531_Body- Worn_Cameras_not_Seeing_the_Forest_for_the_Technology Valarie Findlay is a research fellow for the Police Foundation (USA) and has two decades of senior expertise in cyber security and polic- ing initiatives. She holds a Masters in Terrorism Studies from the University of St. Andrews, and her dissertation, "The Impact of Ter- rorism on the Transformation of Law Enforcement" examined the transformation of law enforcement in Western nations. Currently, Ms. Findlay is preparing her doctoral thesis on terrorism as a social phenomenon examined within the Civilising Process Theory (Elias). Ms. Findlay writes frequently for various security industry and law enforcement magazines on the organizational aspects of law en- forcement and their impact on society, and on strategic initiatives in cyber security and domestic policy and national security. It is clear the effectiveness of body-worn cameras will depend on the organization, its stated uses and goals, measurements and success criteria, and the rigorous execution of the pilot and/or adoption of the program.

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