The effect of body-worn cameras on satisfaction and general perceptions of police: Findings from a quasi-randomized controlled trial
| Author | Mustafa Demir,Ahmet Kule |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1477370820905105 |
| Published date | 01 July 2022 |
| Date | 01 July 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1477370820905105
European Journal of Criminology
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/1477370820905105
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The effect of body-worn
cameras on satisfaction
and general perceptions of
police: Findings from a quasi-
randomized controlled trial
Mustafa Demir
State University of New York at Plattsburgh, USA
Ahmet Kule
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, USA
Abstract
This study investigated the effect of body-worn cameras (BWCs) on citizens’ satisfaction with
the encounter and citizens’ general perceptions of the police during traffic stops. A post-test-only
two-group quasi-randomized experimental design was implemented. Drivers in the experimental
group encountered the traffic police officers wearing BWCs and were notified that the encounter
was being filmed, whereas those in the control group experienced business-as-usual traffic stops.
A survey was administered to drivers after completion of the traffic stop. In total, 624 out of
860 stopped drivers (325 in the control group and 299 in the experimental group) participated
in the survey. Both bivariate and multivariate analyses showed that BWCs increased significantly
citizens’ satisfaction with the encounter and citizens’ general perceptions of the police.
Keywords
Quasi-randomized controlled trial, body-worn camera, satisfaction, general perceptions of police
Introduction
In Turkey, citizens’ perceptions of police are negative and citizens’ satisfaction with the
police is low. The results of survey studies on citizens’ attitudes toward police in Turkey
Corresponding author:
Mustafa Demir, SUNY at Plattsburgh, Criminal Justice Department, Redcay Hall 166, 101 Broad St,
Plattsburgh, NY 12901, USA.
Email: mdemi002@plattsburgh.edu
905105EUC0010.1177/1477370820905105European Journal of CriminologyDemir and Kule
research-article2020
Article
2022, Vol. 19(4) 562–585
have shown that the respondents reported that public perceptions of the police – particu-
larly traffic police officers – have changed negatively over the last decade (91 percent of
500 respondents), that police–community relations are unsatisfactory (66 percent of 500
respondents), that citizens are not satisfied with the quality of treatment by traffic police
officers during traffic stops (Dönmezer, 2011), and that drivers believe that police cor-
ruption is prevalent, particularly among traffic police officers (on a binary scale – yes/no
– 81 percent of 486 stopped drivers reported that they had accepted a bribery offer by the
police) (Cerrah et al., 2009).
Citizen satisfaction and citizen perceptions of the police are mainly shaped by police
behaviors (Rosenbaum et al., 2015) and police transparency (White, 2014) during
police–citizen interactions. Among police–citizen interactions, traffic stops have a sig-
nificant impact on citizens’ views of the police (Mazerolle et al., 2013) because most of
citizens’ views of the police are formed during a 10-minute traffic stop based on police
behavior (Calahan and Kersten, 2005; Woodhull, 1995). This is the case for Turkey as
well (see Sahin et al., 2017). Police body-worn cameras (BWCs) are regarded as one of
the most important tools to enhance trust, police legitimacy, and transparency; to improve
the quality of interactions between police and citizens; and to prevent the violent encoun-
ters that transpire during police–citizen encounters (Coudert et al., 2015; President’s
Task Force on 21st Century Policing, 2015). Thus, in recent years, BWCs have been
widely used by police departments around the world to record police–citizen encounters
(Coudert et al., 2015; Custers and Vergouw, 2015).
The widespread use of BWCs has led researchers to investigate the effect of BWCs
on police–citizen encounters. Specifically, experimental studies generally focused on the
effect of BWCs on use of force, citizen complaints against the police, and assaults on
police officers (see Lum et al., 2019). However, only a few experimental studies have
investigated the effect of BWCs on citizens’ perceptions, including professionalism, pro-
cedural justice, and satisfaction (for example, Goodison et al., 2017; McClure et al.,
2017; White et al., 2017). To date, none of the past studies has tested the effect of BWCs
on citizens’ general perceptions of the police. This study is the first study to examine
experimentally the effect of BWCs on citizens’ general perceptions of the police and the
fourth study to examine the effect of BWCs on citizens’ satisfaction with the encounter.
This is a part of larger study, which is based on the same quasi-randomized controlled
experimental design but focuses on different outcomes and employs different statistical
analyses. The first paper (Demir et al., 2018) used an ordinary least squares (OLS) model
with robust standard errors (SEs) obtained from bootstrap with 500 replications (unstand-
ardized coefficients were reported) to investigate the effect of BWCs on citizen percep-
tions of procedural justice, traffic police legitimacy, and police legitimacy, and then
employed a path regression analysis to estimate whether procedural justice mediated the
effect of BWCs on legitimacy outcomes. Procedural justice (measured with seven items)
and the two legitimacy variables (each measured with three items) were estimated from
principal component analyses since they were latent variables (Demir et al., 2018). In
addition, a collection of sensitivity analyses (fully interacted regression, robust regres-
sion, quantile regression, censored normal regression, censored least absolute deviations,
treatment effect regression, combined ordered logistic regression, multilevel ordered
logistic regression, MIMIC ordered logistic regression) were conducted to confirm
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Demir and Kule
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