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Focusing on discourses surrounding the introduction and use of body-worn cameras, this book contends that the principal catalyst for equipping front-line officers with cameras is linked to media narratives concerning beliefs about their effectiveness in bringing about police reform.
Although research testing the efficacy of body cameras is inconsistent, law enforcement agencies continue to adopt and use body-worn cameras on the premise that the technology will increase and enhance accountability and transparency. The authors argue that the police and public do not have shared definitions or expectations associated with the terms accountability and transparency, but that these ideas appear frequently across media narratives in relation to police reform.
Police Body-Worn Cameras: Media and the New Discourse of Police Reform details how the new discourse obfuscates the clashing expectations and goals of police and publics, ensuring that transparency and accountability remain aspirational public concepts with no enshrined legal or policy parameters that bolster the legitimacy of policing as an institution.
This book will appeal to scholars and students of criminology, sociology, media studies and policing.
List of contents
1.Introduction: Media and Police Body-Worn Cameras. 2.The New Discourse of Police Reform. 3.Policing's New Visibility and the Impetus for Body-Worn Cameras. 4.Police Body-Worn Cameras and Axon Enterprise's Claims in Media. 5.News Coverage of the Rialto Police Department's Body Camera Experiment. 6.Body-Worn Cameras and Police Accountability in Practice. 7.Conclusion: Developments and Recommendations. 8.Bibliography.
About the author
Christopher J. Schneider is Professor of sociology at Brandon University.
Erick Laming is Assistant Professor of Criminology in the Department of Sociology at Trent University.
