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The Essex body worn video trial: the impact of body worn video on criminal justice outcomes of domestic abuse incidents

Published: 
04 November, 2014

The College of Policing has published the results of a four-month body worn video trial undertaken by Essex Police.

The trial was completed by a total of 308 officers; 70 of which were randomly allocated cameras for use, the rest remained without to act as a control group.

Key findings

  • The trial showed that issuing officers with body worn video could be effective at increasing the proportion of detections that resulted in a criminal charge.
  • There were no differences in incidents being recorded as crimes, or rates of arrest, and too few cases to identify impact on guilty pleas and sentencing at this time.
  • Officers with BWV frequently mentioned the evidence gathering benefits of the cameras. They also reported feeling confident that incidents they attended would result in convictions.
  • Most officers surveyed stated that they did not switch the camera on for every domestic abuse incident and there were practical issues that limited the possible benefits of the camera.

Results

There was no significant difference between whether a camera was present or not in the rate at which incidents resulted in a sanction detection (SD). However, there was evidence to suggest that use of the camera affected the type of SD.

A significantly higher proportion of incidents attended by at least one officer wearing a camera resulted in one or more criminal charges rather than another SD outcome.

The presence of the camera increases the probability of an individual being charged, but the effect was most noticeable for the lower risk cases.

There were no differences in incidents being recorded as crimes, or rates of arrest, and too few cases to identify impact on guilty pleas and sentencing.

Officer experience

Half of those officers interviewed stated an increased confidence in getting convictions with the cameras, as they felt the cameras gave more detail than a statement could capture.

The evidence, interviewed officers reported, was especially useful if it was a recording of the initial account, as it would often capture emotion and any injuries – more accurately reflecting the impact of the incident.

An added benefit of the cameras was that often victims reportedly gave a great deal of information about the incident, or appeared when the officers arrived at the scene with visible injuries or clearly emotional, that they felt provided useful evidence at a later stage, particularly for evidence led prosecutions.

Officers interviewed felt the cameras increased accountability and made them more mindful of their behaviour. While some comments suggested officers’ would be more likely to arrest than to take any other action with BWV, this was not found in the results, perhaps because of the force’s prior focus on positive action, which officers usually took to mean arrest. They explained a risk aversion to inaction, and how this was amplified by the cameras. There was a feeling they would have to justify action or rather inaction to anyone looking at the footage.

However, the strongest message from the survey and interviews was that the cameras had practical limitations, including failure to record, recording at the wrong angle, difficulties switching it on/off and not working in poor lighting, as well as being bulky so difficult to wear were often given as a reason officers stopped using the equipment.

Read the full report here.




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