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Literature Review Of Body Worn Cameras

Decent Essays
Literature Review

Theoretical Applications and Empirical Support Theoretical and empirical research suggests that body-worn cameras have the potential to impact the issues revolving around law enforcement legitimacy and distrust by providing a measure of accountability and introducing an objective viewpoint that makes law enforcement more transparent to the public on the wearing of body worn cameras or BWC’s.
The theories that will be discussed will be the Deterrence Theory, Routine Activities Theory, Objective Self-Awareness Theory and Situational Crime Prevention Theory. These theories will be framed by defining the theory and then discussing how body-worn cameras impact the behavior of officers and citizens. Following the discussion
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The specific deterrent measures are in place so when an officer or citizen encounter each other both parties are aware of the officer is wearing a BWC. General deterrence is addressed as long as the department is transparent in its use of BWCs. Most of the time, the police-community relations are publicized. Departments can combat some of the negative publicity presented in the media by publicizing the objective BWC footage relaying a message to would-be offenders, whether officers or citizens, of the presence of BWCs use within the department. The knowledge of BWC would impact the would-be offenders’ understanding that their actions will be captured regardless of what events occurring during the police-citizen encounter and this would deter their actions to engage in criminal activities.
Finally, the three cornerstones of deterrence are celerity, certainty, and severity have the potential to be impacted with BWC being used. The impact on officers, their conduct is susceptible of being captured by the BWC, ensuring the certainty that any officer misconduct will be caught during recording. The officer’s ability to make a post-hoc justifications for any misconduct is reduced since the recording is objective and enhances the fact-finder’s ability to set any types sanctions with an appropriate level of severity. Providing the instantaneous objective viewpoint of an incident in question, the BWCs have
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