Final

Question3b.pdf

The importance of external stakeholders for police body-worn

camera diffusion Natalie Todak

Department of Criminal Justice, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA

Janne E. Gaub Department of Criminal Justice, East Carolina University,

Greenville, North Carolina, USA, and Michael D. White

School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Arizona State University, Phoenix, Arizona, USA

Abstract Purpose – The diffusion of innovations paradigm suggests that stakeholders’ acceptance of a police innovation shapes how it spreads and impacts the larger criminal justice system. A lack of support by external stakeholders for police body-worn cameras (BWCs) can short-circuit their intended benefits. The purpose of this paper is to examine the perceptions of BWCs among non-police stakeholders who are impacted by the technology as well as how BWCs influence their daily work processes. Design/methodology/approach – The authors conducted interviews and focus groups (n ¼ 41) in two US cities where the police department implemented BWCs. The interviewees range from courtroom actors (e.g. judges, prosecutors) to those who work with police in the field (e.g. fire and mental health), city leaders, civilian oversight members, and victim advocates. Findings – External stakeholders are highly supportive of the new technology. Within the diffusion of innovations framework, this support suggests that the adoption of BWCs will continue. However, the authors also found the decision to implement BWCs carries unique consequences for external stakeholders, implying that a comprehensive planning process that takes into account the views of all stakeholders is critical. Originality/value – Despite the recent diffusion of BWCs in policing, this is the first study to examine the perceptions of external stakeholders. More broadly, few criminologists have applied the diffusion of innovations framework to understand how technologies and other changes emerge and take hold in the criminal justice system. This study sheds light on the spread of BWCs within this framework and offers insights on their continued impact and consequences. Keywords Police, Stakeholders, Technology, Innovations, Diffusion, Body-worn cameras Paper type Research paper

Introduction Police body-worn cameras (BWCs) emerged rapidly among police departments in the USA and abroad. The Bureau of Justice Statistics estimated in 2013 that one-third of surveyed police agencies (approximately 3,900) were at least pilot testing BWCs (Reaves, 2015). In the years since a series of highly publicized citizen deaths compelled police departments to equip their officers with cameras, and experts speculate that all medium to large agencies will have them in the next few years (Capps, 2015). Additionally, the Major City Chiefs and Major County Sheriffs Associations (2015, p. ii) surveyed their membership in 2015, and the vast majority indicated they were planning or had already implemented a BWC program: “only 5% of respondents said they either did not intend to implement a BWC program, or had completed a pilot but chose not to proceed.” This rapid diffusion has been aided by both a ripe political and social environment characterized by high levels of support from many sectors, as well as a growing body of research underscoring the benefits of BWCs.

Policing: An International Journal Vol. 41 No. 4, 2018 pp. 448-464 © Emerald Publishing Limited 1363-951X DOI 10.1108/PIJPSM-08-2017-0091

Received 1 August 2017 Revised 16 April 2018 Accepted 15 May 2018

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/1363-951X.htm

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Research suggests that BWCs can improve citizen trust in police, assist prosecution, protect officers against frivolous complaints, temper police–citizen interactions, and reduce police use of force (White, 2014a). For example, an evaluation of BWCs in the Rialto (CA) Police Department documented a nearly 90 percent drop in citizen complaints against police, and a 60 percent decline in the use of force by officers (Ariel et al., 2015), while Morrow et al. (2016) and Owens et al. (2014) found that BWCs led to enhanced criminal justice outcomes for domestic violence cases.

Nevertheless, there are numerous challenges and concerns associated with BWCs – such as cost, resource requirements, citizen and officer privacy concerns, data storage and security, and police union objections – that may inhibit adoption of the technology (White, 2014a). These concerns led the Boston Police Union, for example, to seek a court injunction to stop the department leadership from creating a BWC program (Levenson and Allen, 2016). Moreover, research on the impact of BWCs has not been universally positive. Several studies have documented no impact on the use of force and citizen complaints (Edmonton Police Service, 2015; Grossmith et al., 2015; Yokum et al., 2017). Additionally, Ariel et al. (2016) found a troubling link between BWCs and increased rates of assaults on officers.

Given the rapid acceptance of BWCs in policing over the last several years and lingering concerns over impact and consequences of the technology, questions have emerged regarding why the technology has spread so quickly and whether BWCs will become ubiquitous in local law enforcement. We argue that these questions can be informed by consideration of the diffusion of innovations paradigm, which traces how and why ideas, technologies, and practices spread in a social system (Ryan and Gross, 1943). An innovation is spread when it flows from a source to an innovator, and from there is adopted by more innovators. Wejnert (2002) proposed a three-component model predicting this spread, accounting for features of the innovation, the innovators (i.e. the adopters of the innovation), and the external environment. Wejnert’s (2002) model provides a useful lens for considering the rapid diffusion of BWCs as well as for identifying gaps in the body of BWC research.

Application of the diffusion of innovations framework to the literature on BWCs highlights a near-exclusive focus on the key aspects of the innovation, most notably the costs and benefits for innovators (e.g. police). This focus is well-deserved, but there are key aspects of the Wejnert model that have not been addressed. Most notably, no studies have explored the costs and benefits of BWCs for stakeholders outside of the police department. The diffusion of innovations paradigm suggests that the perceptions of non-police stakeholders are critically important and can either inhibit or facilitate the continued spread of BWCs. Police agencies do not operate in a vacuum – the impacts of daily operations within an agency, organizational changes, and the behaviors and decisions made by individual officers extend far beyond the citizens with whom they come into direct contact. As police are the gatekeepers to the rest of the criminal justice system, their decisions have a ripple effect that influence the number and types of cases handled by the jails, courts, prisons, and community corrections (Hartman and Belknap, 2003). For example, in their study on police decision making in sexual assault cases, Tasca et al. (2013) concluded “the initial decisions made by police determine the flow of cases that reach the prosecutors” and ultimately “the fate of the case” (pp. 1158-1159). The decisions made by officers are also scrutinized by citizens and heavily inform community perceptions of the agency. The influence of police activities further extends to other local institutions, such as fire, rescue, and mental health, as well as city government, local businesses, and schools. As such, the decision made by a police agency to implement a BWC program carries both direct and indirect influences on each of these community institutions. Notably, external stakeholder engagement is a central feature of resources made available by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) resources for BWC program planning and implementation (Bureau of Justice Assistance, 2015).

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To our knowledge; however, no studies have examined the perceptions of BWCs among the external stakeholders. This research gap raises important questions about the continued diffusion of the technology in policing. For example, prosecutors’ and courts’ reluctance to accept BWC footage could affect the police use of the technology in the future, while a failure to account for the concerns of city leaders could lead to questions about funding BWC programs. The current study addresses this research gap. The body of research on the police has generally neglected to acknowledge the influence of policing on external stakeholders. As such, the current study contributes to this body of work, first, by identifying a range of external stakeholders who are affected by the actions of the police. We sampled stakeholders from two US cities whose police departments recently adopted BWCs. Second, we draw on in-depth interviews and focus groups with stakeholders (n ¼ 41) to investigate their perceptions of BWCs. With the diffusion of innovations paradigm as a backdrop, the findings shed light on the continued diffusion of BWCs, potential barriers to this diffusion, and the impact and consequences for external stakeholders.

Prior research Diffusion of police innovations Wejnert (2002) concluded that three elements influence the spread of an innovation: features of the innovation, innovators, and the external environment. First, she explains that innovations have consequences involving both costs and benefits. The characteristics of an innovation can have profound consequences on both internal and external stakeholders, and the degree of acceptance by those stakeholders will affect the rate of diffusion. Second, innovators are those who adopt the innovation, and innovator characteristics can affect the level of diffusion, such as whether an innovator is an individual or organization, or their position within various social networks. Finally, features of the external environment, such as geography, political climate, social culture, and levels of global uniformity play a role in the diffusion of an innovation (Wejnert, 2002).

Few researchers have applied the diffusion of innovations paradigm to explain the spread of police technologies and strategies (see Klinger, 2003). White (2014b) tracked the spread of TASERs in the USA beginning in 1999, noting that by 2012 two-thirds of US departments had purchased the device. He further highlighted how key aspects of the innovation, innovators, and external environment facilitated the rapid diffusion of the TASER device. White (2014b) also applied the diffusion paradigm to impact munitions to explain why that particular innovation has not enjoyed widespread adoption. Weisburd et al. (2003) examined the diffusion of the CompStat model in policing, noting that the model’s success has been commonly attributed to its effectiveness in preventing crime. Taking a diffusion of innovations approach; however, Weisburd et al. (2003) observed that CompStat’s diffusion is more likely explained by its reinforcement of the militaristic and bureaucratic principles that dominated traditional policing. Aside from these studies, criminologists have “largely ignored” the study of diffusion of innovations and what it may offer our understanding of change within the criminal justice system (Klinger, 2003, p. 461).

Diffusion of BWCs BWCs have spread rapidly, and application of Wejnert’s (2002) model helps explain the technology’s diffusion. First, several aspects of the innovation itself explain its broad appeal. The most commonly cited benefit of BWCs involves decreased rates of use of force and citizen complaints against officers. Studies in Rialto, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Orlando, and Spokane have documented reductions in these outcomes following BWC deployment (Ariel et al., 2015; Braga et al., 2017; Hedberg et al., 2017; Jennings et al., 2015; White, Gaub and Todak, 2018), though some studies have found no significant changes, especially in use of force (Ariel, 2016; Braga et al., 2018; Yokum et al., 2017). Several studies have also

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highlighted the evidentiary value of BWCs, particularly for domestic violence cases (Morrow et al., 2016; Owens et al., 2014). One important potential benefit of BWCs is that the cameras may enhance the citizen’s perceptions of police legitimacy. White et al. (2017) identified an intriguing connection between citizen awareness of the BWC during a police encounter and increased perceptions of procedural justice. More generally, several studies have demonstrated citizen support for BWCs (Crow et al., 2017; Morin and Stepler, 2016; Sousa et al., 2018). Last, Braga et al. (2017) conducted a cost-benefit analysis of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s BWC program, and reported a cost-savings of over $4 million annually.

Researchers have also examined innovator attitudes about BWCs. Jennings et al. (2014) found over 60 per cent of Orlando police officers believed their agency should deploy BWCs to all officers (see also Mesa Police Department, 2013; Ready and Young, 2015; Roy, 2014). Officers across the Phoenix (AZ), Tempe (AZ), and Spokane (WA) Police Departments also reported positive perceptions of BWCs before and after deployment (Gaub et al., 2016). Gaub, Todak and White (2017) found similarly positive attitudes among officers assigned to non-patrol specialty units (e.g. detectives, K9). Patrol officers at a university police department thought the BWC program was a good idea overall, but felt their input was not taken into consideration before the decision was made. They also voiced concerns associated with usability, privacy issues, and potential problems concerning how BWCs would be used by supervisors to monitor their behavior (Pelfrey and Keener, 2016), a concern echoed by officers elsewhere (Gaub, Todak and White, 2017; Gaub, White, Padilla and Katz, 2017). Command staff also have positive views of BWCs for reasons associated with enhancing transparency and improving complaint processing times, among other benefits (Gaub, White, Padilla and Katz, 2017; Pelfrey and Keener, 2016). A survey of command staff in a large southern county echoed these positive views, but also worried the media would use footage to embarrass officers and the call for BWCs stems from unwarranted public distrust of the police (Smykla et al., 2016).

In summary, the diffusion of innovations paradigm highlights an important gap in BWC research: the dearth of studies examining costs and benefits of the innovation for non-police external stakeholders (see Lum et al., 2015). The diffusion of BWCs has implications for each actor in the criminal justice system, ranging from prosecutors, public defenders, private defense, and their staff to judges and juries. Additionally, the presence of BWCs affects a wide range of actors outside of the criminal justice system who encounter officers in their work, such as firefighters and mental health professionals. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) and US DOJ have developed an array of resources to guide the planning of a BWC program, most notably a National Body-Worn Camera Toolkit (Bureau of Justice Assistance, 2016) and a Law Enforcement Implementation Checklist (Bureau of Justice Assistance, 2015), and external stakeholder engagement is a central feature of those resources. The diffusion of innovations paradigm suggests that the degree of external stakeholders’ acceptance of BWCs will influence their continued spread and the nature of the impact of BWCs on society in general. Accordingly, this study investigates how BWCs affect external stakeholders who may be impacted by the police department’s decision to adopt this new technology. In particular, we explore external stakeholders’ attitudes regarding the benefits and drawbacks of BWCs and the impact of BWCs on their daily work. The methods used to investigate these questions are described in detail below.

Methods This study is part of a larger project examining BWCs in the Tempe (AZ) and Spokane (WA) Police Departments. Both departments deployed cameras as part of a randomized-controlled trial (RCT) experiment, where half of patrol officers received a BWC during Phase 1 (treatment

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group), and the remainder received their BWC six months later during Phase 2 (control group)[1]. Data collection for the current inquiry into stakeholder perceptions of BWCs began four to six months after the start of the RCT in each site (September 2015 in Spokane, Spring 2016 in Tempe).

Sampling frame We sought to sample a diverse group of stakeholders who may be affected by the local police agency’s decision to implement a new BWC program. Given limited resources, we had to make a decision regarding the sampling approach. The first option is to identify a small number of stakeholder groups and interview a large number of individuals within those groups (e.g. interview all staff in the city’s prosecutors office). The second option is to identify a larger number of stakeholder groups and interview a small number of individuals within those groups. Each approach has its merits and drawbacks. Given the lack of research on BWCs and external stakeholder, we made the decision to identify a larger universe of stakeholder groups, and to interview a small number of individuals from those diverse groups.

For a number of reasons, we looked to the two police agencies for guidance in identifying stakeholders who met our sample criteria. Using department recommendations to identify our sampling frame was beneficial because: each community is unique; the authors were not acquainted with external stakeholders in each jurisdiction; we sought to be consistent with the recommendations offers in the BJA BWC Implementation Toolkit (Bureau of Justice Assistance, 2016); and the policing literature does not generally identify a concrete group of stakeholders who may be impacted by a police agency’s operations or activities, and more specifically, there is little guidance regarding who may be affected by the agency’s decision to implement a BWC program.

We provided police department personnel with a general list of stakeholders (e.g. lawyers, city council, local business owners, fire and rescue personnel) who may be affected by the agency’s decision to implement BWCs and asked the department leadership to recommend any additional groups or individuals that may fit these selection criteria. Department leadership then generated a list of specific individuals to be interviewed. In Spokane, the police department contacted stakeholders to schedule interviews, and provided the authors with a complete itinerary. In Tempe, the police department identified stakeholders and facilitated introductions, but scheduling was organized by the authors. We are not aware if any participants declined to participate in the study when initially contacted by the police agency in Spokane, though one individual failed to attend the scheduled interview with the authors. In Tempe, one individual declined to participate when contacted by the authors.

Participants Table I provides a list of participants (n ¼ 41). In total, 24 Spokane stakeholders were interviewed; there were 15 individual interviews and three focus groups (ranging in size from two to four individuals). In total, 11 of the 17 Tempe stakeholders were interviewed individually; the remaining six stakeholders were interviewed in one of two focus groups (each composed of three participants). Focus groups were used for the convenience of stakeholders. In some cases, scheduling conflicts required stakeholders from the same office to be interviewed individually; in other instances, one meeting (focus group) was more convenient. No police personnel were present at interviews, and no interviews were conducted at police department facilities. In accordance with university institutional review board requirements, the authors provided an informed consent process for all participants to demonstrate the voluntary and confidential nature of the study. Focus groups required a written consent while one-on-one interviews required a verbal consent.

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Data collection procedures and analysis Interviews and focus groups were guided by the same semi-structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was designed to understand stakeholders’ general views on BWCs, including their perceptions of perceived benefits and concerns across a wide range of issues. We also asked about the specific impact of BWCs on their work (see the Appendix for the full questionnaire). The questionnaire was designed based on White’s (2014a) report, which elucidated a list of claims made in the public sphere about police BWCs, as well as a review of existing research, which offered a concrete research agenda for scholars to test claims moving forward. Given the wide range of issues broached by the adoption of police BWCs, and the heterogeneous nature of our stakeholder sample, we adhered closely to the identified claims about BWCs as a guide to investigate stakeholders’ views on BWCs.

Each interview or focus group lasted approximately 30 minutes. Participants met at an agreed upon location (often a public location such as a coffee shop or the individual’s office) with one or more of the authors[2]. On each discussion point, the interviewer would ask the participant to comment on a suggested benefit or claim (e.g. “Do you think body-worn cameras will have an effect on police community relations?”). Follow-up questions or prompts were used as necessary to dig deeper into the individual’s perceptions on each point. All interviews were audio-recorded with the participant’s permission and later transcribed. Transcripts were uploaded and qualitatively coded in NVivo 11 software (QSR International, Melbourne, Australia). Each transcript was coded for themes predetermined by the research team based on the prominent public rhetoric about the topic and the existing empirical guidance on the issue (i.e. White, 2014a). The results presented here focus on participants’ views regarding the general benefits of police BWCs and the general drawbacks or concerns of BWCs. As part of these views, we also capture the specific impact of BWCs on the stakeholder’s own work. The most common responses within each of these categories are identified and discussed below. Illustrative quotes are provided to describe each theme.

Findings Benefits of BWCs Stakeholders emphasized three main benefits of BWCs: evidentiary value, improved police–citizen relationships, and improved working conditions for police.

Evidentiary value. Stakeholders highlighted the potential for BWCs to provide an objective representation of what transpired, eliminating the “he said, she said” dilemma that persists in many criminal cases. Citizens interacting with the police are also sometimes in a state of emotional crisis, which can affect their memory and influence statements made at the time of the encounter or later in court. “[If] any of the participants are in a high emotional state their focus changes. It narrows. It’s whatever […] is scary to them and it’s whatever is

Spokane (WA) Police Department (n ¼ 24) Tempe (AZ) Police Department (n ¼ 17)

Community activist Local business advocate City and county judge City and county judge City and county prosecutor City prosecutor County public defender City and county public defender City and county investigator School administrator Citizen review board member Fire and rescue professional Victim advocate Crisis response and victim advocate City council member City council member Mental health professional City and public transportation security

Table I. List of external

stakeholders interviewed

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most important to them” ( Judge). Many believed BWCs would be able to provide less filtered or biased accounts.

Several stakeholders noted video evidence can also be beneficial in cases where an officer’s observations are the sole basis in determining probable cause:

[Body cameras] can be very beneficial when dealing with DUI suspects because it provides […] the visual evidence of what the officer’s trying to describe when it comes to their physical impairment. […] Our very first [video] request was for DUI and it was fairly stunning to see what the officer saw (Prosecutor).

Stakeholders said video evidence encourages proper procedure, and ultimately ensures justice is served. For example, public defenders were hopeful BWCs would offer better protections for defendants’ rights and help them better defend their clients. Likewise, courtroom actors said video evidence from the scene helps the prosecution in cases where victims or witnesses later recant their story (e.g. domestic violence):

What I’d like to see more of [body cameras] is on […] a domestic violence case, because every Monday I have motions to recall a no-contact order that we put in place and I have a room full of victims who tell me, you know, when the prosecutor reads the police report, they say “I didn’t say that, I never said that” […] and it would just be nice to have a body camera that said, you did say this (Judge).

The evidentiary value of BWCs extends beyond the courtroom into the larger community. For example, city officials pointed to the potential for BWCs to provide more objective and usable data on the community’s problems. One city council member described the difficulty in assessing the objectivity of data on issues such as the police-community relationship and crime data: “If someone spends $200 producing some materials for me to look at and all their versions of the data, you know, that doesn’t really fool me. I was always kind of suspicious of that.” She felt BWCs would provide a less biased depiction of police issues being presented to city government.

Improved police-community relations. Participants noted that BWCs could improve the strained relationship between citizens and officers through enhanced transparency:

The community has a lot of misguided thoughts and perceptions so I think that this could prove to them that [police officers] really are doing their best, being kind and being compassionate. […] We see things that people have no idea that occur. I think it’s easy to cast judgment when you don’t know […] they’ll see how difficult an officer’s job really is (Crisis response advocate).

For this reason, most participants felt citizens in their communities were supportive of BWCs. Several interviewees added the caveat that BWCs could only improve police–citizen relationships if officers were consistent in turning them on. Participants felt that if officers failed to activate their BWCs it could cause more damage by further deteriorating citizen trust:

While I appreciate the discretion policy, I feel like it lends itself to mistrust because then it opens up the question of why […] wasn’t [the camera] on? Is that some kind of conspiracy? Is that you all looking out for each other? (Victim advocate).

Participants acknowledged an intended “civilizing effect” of BWCs, which assumes that officers and citizens will behave better because they are being recorded. However, most were skeptical this effect would occur, especially for citizens who are under the influence of alcohol or drugs, are mentally ill and in crisis, or are extremely upset. “They are who they are, and the customer’s always right. And the people that act that way, they’re going to act that way no matter what” (Crisis response advocate). Some participants also told us juveniles would be less influenced by the cameras, because youth are more impulsive and not always rational.

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During the Spokane interviews, many participants mentioned the March 2006 death of Otto Zehm, a mentally ill man who was killed by police while carrying a bottle of soda. For over ten years, this event and the subsequent investigations served as a source of tension and distrust between the police and the community. A number of Spokane stakeholders said they hoped the BWCs would help heal the “wounds” lingering from this tragedy.

Improve police working environment. Stakeholders felt police officers would benefit from BWCs because the evidence would show officers behaving professionally: “We have a stellar group of officers. So I don’t know that their quality of interaction is improved by the cameras” (City attorney). They also felt the videos would expose the public to the more challenging and violent aspects of police work, which may reduce criticism directed at police:

You got to see how intoxicated the defendant was. And they look so different at trial than they do the night of the arrest. So it really got to see a different view of the defendant for the jurors […] so that helped the jury too, that the guy was pretty intoxicated. […] He’s covered in blood, he actually was covered in blood when they caught him because it was an assault. […] You get the clothes and stuff, but they don’t always look the same, so at least you got the video in there where you can see the blood all over his shirt and his pants ( Judge).

Similarly, participants said BWC evidence would save officers from false allegations because it gives “an independent view […] that people can’t complain about” (City attorney). Many stakeholders reflected that a number of people lie about the police, often because they are being charged with a crime and are motivated to dispute the charges:

[The police] have had a couple of use of force incidents where the body cameras were actually like, as soon as that was released, that’s when the public got back on their side and said, “Yes you were totally in the right, I would’ve done the same thing. I probably would’ve pulled the trigger a lot quicker.” […] So I think law enforcement […] view them as largely positive because it’s saving […] their hinds (Public defender).

It really helps the police department because they get so many false and exaggerated allegations made against them. […] My motion calendar on Monday mornings is a great example. The victims come in and, the police are lying, you know, I never told them that […] they took words out of my mouth and they wrote it down the way they wanted to write it down instead of the way I told them. So every Monday morning the police are getting thrown under the bus in this court and it would be great that they could at least have something to protect themselves against allegations of false reporting, false arresting, that kind of stuff ( Judge).

Stakeholders also noted that cameras can help police by reducing their anxiety over being falsely accused of misconduct, providing comfort that they have that additional protection, and by streamlining complaint and court processes.

Concerns about body-worn cameras Stakeholders emphasized three drawbacks of BWCs: the resource burden of reviewing and redacting videos, the need to manage citizens’ perceptions about the technology, and the lack of clear BWC policies.

Resource burden. Courtroom actors voiced concern about the burden that video evidence would place on agency resources, particularly in terms of analyzing video footage:

Some of the complaints I’m fielding already from our paralegal […] “I spent half a day or a full day just trying to sort through all these body camera videos.” And this is just the initial roll out. […] If you start adding to this exponentially where you have more and more of these officers with [BWCs], […] who’s going to be responsible for doing that? It doesn’t come with a flag saying “Here’s the important thing right here,” this 10 minutes of 2 hours of a camera rolling (Prosecutor).

Interviewee 1: I would say that that’s one of the most time consuming things that we do is watching video, everybody can agree with that.

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Interviewee 2: I have four that I need to watch right now!

Interviewee 3: If the body cam’s there, I’m looking at probably anywhere between an extra 4-10 hours working on a case, no matter what (Public defender investigators).

The lawyers also noted that the time investment may not produce viable evidence, and even when footage is usable, there are pre-trial hearings that determine admissibility and redaction. Although this video redaction process is not new to the court system (e.g. surveillance cameras), courtroom actors noted the burden of carrying out these tasks would increase exponentially with expanded BWC deployment.

Prosecutors acknowledged that the protocols for receiving and processing BWC evidence had not been sufficiently fleshed out, causing some tension between the agencies. Technology issues, specifically acquiring and storing the videos, also presented continuing challenges for prosecutors. Judges, however, did not believe that BWCs would create a burden because the evidence generated from BWCs is not discernibly different from other video evidence already being used in the courtroom. In fact, judges acknowledged that BWCs might reduce their workload, since it may increase negotiations or pleas in earlier stages of the process:

The only time the body cameras are going to come into play for a court is during a trial, […] 2% of the cases maybe that are filed. Otherwise they’re resolved (Judge).

I haven’t had any trials or situations where they’ve come up in my courtroom. […] I don’t know if that’s because they’re so effective that trials go out the wayside, or what (Judge).

Public expectations management. Stakeholders were concerned the public would overestimate the value of BWC evidence. They thought that citizens might believe the cameras would solve what they feel is a widespread problem of police misconduct. Additionally, stakeholders feared that BWCs would create a new “CSI effect,” wherein jurors expect movie-quality video and audio evidence in every case, and may hesitate to convict when it is not present. Image management efforts would need to be undertaken so juries are aware of the limitations of BWCs:

People have a CSI expectation that they’re going to get this awesome video of everything unfolding and they don’t realize that when the camera’s sitting on a police officer’s body […] the view is very limited. […] I’m concerned that jurors will have an unreasonable expectation and prosecutors won’t be able to flesh that out (Judge).

[In trial] I did not believe [the cameras were] very helpful because essentially everything happened prior to the officer getting there and turning on the camera. […] Also, from a sound perspective, […] because of where it is positioned on the officer, there is a lot of bump, thud, whoosh so you miss a lot of what is actually being said (Judge).

Unclear legal and policy guidance. Stakeholders expressed several concerns related to BWC law and policy. The first involves camera activation. Several stakeholders believed the police department had not answered a key question: what should and should not be recorded? Respondents questioned whether officers should be allowed to record incidents that include protected health information, the inside of an individual’s home, citizens who are nude, as well as interviews with vulnerable populations (e.g. sexual assault victims). Alternatively, stakeholders acknowledged that turning off the camera during these encounters could increase suspicion about what transpired during the period without footage. In general, participants were concerned that these issues had not been adequately examined before their departments deployed BWCs.

A victim’s advocate was particularly concerned about the potential for BWCs to violate a person’s rights over the long term. For example, a sex worker with hopes of turning his or

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her life around might have to continually deal with the existence of BWC footage available online that depicts an arrest, thereby impacting the potential for future employment:

We had somebody request every moment of footage from a body-worn camera. That’s terrifying as a victim. This is your most vulnerable moment. […] If someone is left in an alley or sidewalk or park, and a patrol officer gets the call, runs to the scene, is that person going to know whether to turn on their camera or remember to turn it off? Is this footage of them in a state of undress or disrepair or trauma [… and] how accessible is that to the public? That’s a concern of mine, that hasn’t been fleshed out enough through [the courts] (Victim advocate).

Similarly, a mental health professional was concerned that protected medical information might be accessible by the public. She worried that mental health professionals would have to be careful about they said in the presence of police to protect confidential information. “If I’m on my way to the client’s door and I get a call about another client and I’m talking about them and that’s caught on camera, […] that makes me nervous.” These fears reflect a belief that the necessary information would not be properly redacted before being released to the public, and more generally that the proper policies and rules had not been put in place. This was especially true with our Spokane participants because, relative to other states, Washington’s public records laws are quite broad:

“I want all your videos. All your videos forever on everyone for everything you ever did.” That was just mind-boggling to us that somebody could do that (Police Citizen Oversight Committee Member).

The implications of our findings for the future diffusion of police BWCs and their potential impact is discussed in detail below.

Discussion and conclusion The diffusion of innovations paradigm highlights the importance of stakeholder acceptance in facilitating or inhibiting the emergence and spread of a new idea, technology, or practice (Wejnert, 2002). Within the context of BWCs, we applied this framework to highlight that non-police external stakeholders are influential in the diffusion process and specifically in determining the impact of the technology moving forward. To investigate this impact, we conducted a qualitative inquiry into the perceptions of BWCs among criminal justice and external stakeholders in two cities where the local police department had recently deployed BWCs. Several key themes emerged from the current study.

Stakeholders collectively emphasized three of the purported benefits of BWCs. First, they believe that the technology will be able to offer powerful visual evidence that may increase the likelihood that guilt or innocence is accurately determined in the courtroom. The importance of this benefit cannot be understated, as it has powerful implications for the effective administration of justice. Stakeholders also believe that BWCs may enhance citizen trust and perceptions of police, and this too is a significant benefit – particularly given the ongoing crisis in police community relations (President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, 2015). Police departments are increasingly recognizing procedural justice and legitimacy (Tyler, 1990) as important measures of police performance, and the potential for BWCs to facilitate achievement of those measures represents an intriguing opportunity for police (see White et al., 2017). Finally, external stakeholders recognized the value of BWCs for police officers themselves. BWCs give officers a “voice” that has traditionally been missing in the public discourse. BWCs also give officers protection against frivolous complaints and allegations that, even if eventually disproven, can sideline an officer’s career in both the short and long term.

Stakeholders also emphasized concerns about the limitations of BWCs, including resource burdens, citizen misconceptions, and unclear policy and legal guidance. In the

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context of the diffusion of innovations paradigm, these concerns represent threats to the continued diffusion of BWCs. In each case, the identified challenges were seen by the external stakeholders in Spokane and Tempe as surmountable. This optimistic view of stakeholders may be explained, in part, by the collaborative and deliberate planning process carried out by both police departments with regard to their BWC programs. In each department, police leaders engaged with downstream criminal justice and external stakeholders as they planned their BWC programs. This is demonstrated by the fact that all of the stakeholders we interviewed were well aware of the BWC rollout, and in fact, they were well attuned to the perceived benefits and challenges associated with the technology. For example, both a city prosecutor and municipal court judge highlighted the efforts by the police to engage with stakeholders pre-deployment:

The police department here has been very kind and considerate in the way that they’re rolling this out, as opposed to other jurisdictions that I’ve heard about who – the police department just kind of went “Oh crap we need these on them” and then prosecuting offices suddenly had this large amount of video data where there’s no system in place, there’s no policies in place, and there are no resources to view them (City prosecutor).

They are deliberate and they are very cautious and we appreciate that and actually, just so you know, we get apprised what their progress was, what their plan for implementation is and what they plan for the future. We communicate very well with each other (Municipal judge).

It is also notable that the perceptions of stakeholders in Spokane and Tempe matched the perceptions of both police officers and citizens in those jurisdictions. Officers in both police departments expressed high levels of support for BWCs, and they identified the same set of potential benefits (e.g. evidentiary value, improved police working environment) and concerns (public expectation management, unclear policy/legal guidance; Gaub et al., 2016; White, Todak and Gaub, 2018). Citizens who had encounters with officers in both jurisdictions expressed equally positive views about BWCs and their impact (White et al., 2017; White, Todak and Gaub, 2018).

A primary difference between the two study departments involved the questions of BWC administrative policy, wherein during the Spokane interviews stakeholders voiced policy-related concerns on activation and accessibility. This is in part explained because the Tempe Police Department actively sought input from external stakeholders during the development of their BWC policy, while the Spokane Police Department was less expansive in their engagement on policy[3]. Moreover, during the time of data collection the State of Washington had laws stating that any individual could request access to any BWC video, causing some stakeholders to express concerns about the unrestricted access.

We also found that stakeholders in each community perceived BWCs would offer unique benefits to their city. In particular, the stakeholders interviewed in Spokane were hopeful that, through a show of increased transparency, their police agency’s decision to implement BWCs would help alleviate the persistent tension lingering from the highly controversial death of Otto Zehm in 2006. This event may have led to enhanced perceptions in Spokane of the transparency and accountability benefits of the cameras. In both communities, moreover, we found that the police were generally held in high regard by the stakeholders. They collectively expressed a hope that the community would see, through increased access to video footage of police interactions, their department doing good work, which could lead to increased trust in the officers. The unique commentary from stakeholders in our sample highlights how it is crucial for police departments to investigate the potential benefits and drawbacks of implementing cameras that may be unique to their local community. The optimal method for achieving this objective is to incorporate the views of all relevant stakeholders into their BWC planning and implementation processes (Bureau of Justice Assistance, 2015). These unique concerns also highlight the need for further research on this topic. Analyses of

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stakeholder perceptions from other contexts may generate different hopes and concerns that are directly related to the unique needs of the community.

The current study demonstrates the value of the diffusion of innovations paradigm for understanding the spread of police technologies such as BWCs, their integration into local criminal justice agencies, and their impact. Specifically, the findings here bode well for the continued diffusion of BWCs in Spokane, Washington, and Tempe, Arizona. Though we urge caution regarding the generalizability of these findings, positive perceptions of BWCs among stakeholders, when combined with high levels of support from police, and citizens, suggests a local environment where BWC implementation would be accepted and well integrated. The diffusion of innovations paradigm also offers a roadmap of sorts for avoiding barriers to diffusion, primarily through the engagement of internal and external stakeholders and a collaborative approach to the BWC program management. In jurisdictions where those barriers have not been avoided, BWC diffusion could be inhibited. More generally, the current study adds to the small body of literature demonstrating the utility of the diffusion of innovations framework for understanding the adoption of tools and strategies in policing (see also, White, 2014b (TASER) and Weisburd et al., 2003 (CompStat)).

These findings point to larger implications for the successful planning and implementation of BWC programs, and underscore the importance of external stakeholder engagement. If stakeholder support is present, particularly among courtroom actors, it seems logical to assume that downstream agencies will be motivated to make organizational adjustments necessary to handle the integration of BWCs into their daily work routines. Prosecutor and defense offices will allocate the necessary resources. Fire and rescue agencies will develop their own policies and training regarding BWCs. City officials will budget for BWCs programs in the future. Attitudinal support among external stakeholders for BWCs is important, but the continued diffusion of BWCs will be contingent upon these more concrete indicators of integration. Findings presented here also offer support for the guidance from the US DOJ regarding BWC program planning, as external stakeholder engagement is a centerpiece of DOJ resources. These thoughts are, of course, mostly speculative until additional research is conducted in other jurisdictions on the planning and implementation of BWC programs.

Our study has limitations that provide context for consideration of the findings. First, we acknowledge that numerous factors have driven the diffusion of BWCs in law enforcement over the last few years, and many of those factors have been reviewed elsewhere (e.g. the high-profile police killings of citizens, support for BWCs from the federal government, positive findings from research studies). In terms of the “diffusion of innovations framework,” these factors represent the aspects of the innovation, innovators, and culture. But the framework also highlights the importance of external stakeholder support, a factor that has been largely ignored by BWC researchers. In the current study, we attempt to fill this gap. Second, the authors interviewed a limited number of individuals in each jurisdiction, resulting in a heterogeneous sample of stakeholders with a diverse set of perspectives. We also gathered our data through both individual interviews and focus groups, which may have influenced participants’ willingness to provide their perspectives. Although best practices for implementing police reform (including BWC programs) requires the agency gauge input from external stakeholders, there is little guidance on who ought to be included in this process. We selected our sample based on available BWC research (Sousa et al., 2016) and guidance from the US resources (Bureau of Justice Assistance, 2015). Moreover, given resource constraints, we decided to identify a large number of stakeholder groups and interview one or a few members from each group. Though this approach generated “superficial” coverage of each stakeholder group, it allowed us to cover more ground within the universe of external stakeholders affected by police BWC deployment. We recognize that our sample is indeed diverse, but all participants met our selection criteria for this exploratory analysis. As such, one important contribution of this paper is the

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identification of a group of external stakeholders who are touched by the police decision to deploy BWCs. This can serve as a starting point to both police departments planning BWC programs, as well as researchers assessing the impact of the technology. Moving forward, we suggest that researchers of police BWCs continue to investigate this important topic drawing on larger sample sizes with more concentrated groups of stakeholders (e.g. courtroom actors, local business owners, civilian review boards).

Moreover, we sampled stakeholders in this study by asking the participating police departments to recommend participants to be interviewed. As a result, it is possible that some stakeholders were omitted, and those who are excluded from our analysis may have differing views of BWCs that were not captured in this study. However, given the lack of existing research on stakeholders impacted by the police, our study represents a first step in identifying stakeholders based on solicited input from police departments. Future research should identify other avenues for identifying stakeholders that do not involve police department leadership (perhaps using a snowball sampling method).

An additional limitation concerns the timing of interviews, which occurred approximately four months after BWC deployment. As such, the findings reported here largely represent stakeholders’ predictions about BWCs, rather than first-hand experience. Future research should investigate stakeholders’ perceptions over time. Unfortunately, such an undertaking is beyond the scope of the current study. Last, the current study does not consider the environmental aspects of the diffusion of innovations model. Geography, political culture, and community features will also play a role in the diffusion of BWCs. For example, the Obama administration strongly supported the diffusion of BWCs, demonstrated by the National Body-Worn Camera Toolkit (Bureau of Justice Assistance, 2016) and a national funding program (i.e. the US Department of Justice’s Body-Worn Camera Policy and Implementation Program). The extent to which the Trump administration will continue support for BWCs remains unclear (Feeney, 2016). Future research should consider the environmental component of the Wejnert’s (2002) model.

When implementing new technologies or strategies, organizations often view them through the lens of their own organizational structure and rules, but this is a myopic view for many innovations. This is particularly true in policing, where the actions taking place within the police realm carry important implications downstream and in the surrounding community. BWCs influence not only how police departments do business, but also how attorneys, judges, and others in the community do their work and interact with the police. The diffusion of innovations paradigm highlights this point. Thus, it is important for non-police external stakeholders to be included in the planning process. Indeed, the success of such innovations largely hinges on the support of not only police officers themselves, but the criminal justice system as a whole and the larger community in which it resides.

Notes

1. For more information regarding the randomized-controlled trial, please see White, Gaub and Todak (2018).

2. The authors conducted the first several interviews as a team in order to establish a common procedure and to engage in post-interview debrief sessions. The principal investigator led interviews in the situations where multiple authors were present. After several sessions as a team, the authors broke off and interviewed participants individually. The principal investigator has over two decades of experience in collecting original data, including interviews and focus groups. The junior authors also have experience conducting interviews and focus groups across a range of populations.

3. The Tempe Police Department shared early drafts of their policy with activist groups (NAACP, ACLU), city officials, fire and rescue, and numerous other stakeholders. Based on the authors’ experience and expertise, this approach is more the exception than the rule.

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