Digital Evidence Management (DEM) encompasses a wide variety of devices, technologies, tools, and data, particularly as they relate to the criminal justice system (Goodison, Davis, and Jackson, 2015). This report is about body-worn cameras (BWCs) and the digital evidence (footage) created by the technology. The main purpose of the study is to understand and explain the key challenges faced by law enforcement agencies and prosecutor offices as they use BWCs routinely.

Nearly all scholarship on body-worn cameras (BWCs) has focused on municipal police departments, as they comprise a majority of sworn agencies. Given the unique environment of collegiate law enforcement agencies, however, it is possible that their paths to BWCs—and the benefits and challenges they experience—vary from that of more traditional agencies. Using a survey of 126 collegiate police departments and in-depth interviews with 15 collegiate police executives, this study describes their goals, challenges, and benefits related to BWCs.

The directory of studies examining citizen perceptions of BWCs is available below. If you have any questions, please contact Dr. Michael White (mdwhite1@asu.edu), Dr.

Abstract

Objectives

This study assesses the effects of body-worn cameras (BWCs) on rates of fatalities arising from police-citizen encounters. While existing experimental research has not examined this outcome because it is so rare, the staggered roll-out of BWCs across the nation’s law enforcement agencies provides an opportunity for quasi-experimental analysis.