Explaining the Body-Worn Camera Perspective Bias

Authors

Rémi Boivin, Université de Montréal and International Centre for Comparative Criminology
Camille Faubert, Université de Montréal
Annie Gendron, École Nationale de Police du Québec and International Centre for Comparative Criminology
Bruno Poulin, École Nationale de Police du Québec

Abstract

"Body-worn cameras (BWCs) can be used to provide video evidence that is expected to help settle cases quickly. The present study explores the assumption that everyone who watches a recorded intervention will have the same understanding of the images. Focus groups were conducted with different people: citizens from the general population, in-training police candidates and cadets, as well as experienced police officers. The aim was to provide insights into how a potential BWC perspective bias affects attitudes towards use of force incidents. Results suggest that the bias has more effect on those without actual experience of police work. In particular, it appears that BWC’s first-person perspective encourages self-imagery but that only experienced officers and, to a lesser extent, intraining police candidates can put themselves in a situation similar to that in the video. Also, while distance is recognized as a crucial element in threat assessment, unexperienced participants noted that it was difficult to estimate distance from the BWC footage."

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Recommended Citation

Boivin, Rémi; Faubert, Camille; Gendron, Annie; and Poulin, Bruno (2020) "Explaining the Body-Worn Camera Perspective Bias," Qualitative Criminology (QC): Vol. 9: No. 1, Article 2.
Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/qc/vol9/iss1/2