To explore this question, this paper draws on 30 interviews with frontline officers of the Calgary Police Service – the first department in Canada to reach full deployment of body-worn cameras across the entire city. All respondents work in patrol division, in a variety of city districts, and have a minimum of 3 years served on the frontline. Interviews were audio-recorded and typically ran 60 to 90 minutes. Interviews were later transcribed and analyzed (in Nvivo12) using both axial and selective coding techniques.
Findings suggest that video recording technology such as body-cameras levy an instrumentarian power: they not only monitor, but actuate. Specifically, anticipating review of their actions, officers reframe both their role and the subtleties of their approach in dealing with members of the public as “more robotic”. This reframing unfolds in two ways.
First, respondents share an overall sense that body cameras dehumanize their interactions: they curb their ability to exercise discretion and build rapport with citizens in a manner they deem most effective. For instance, many describe a particular style of communication they believe is more consistent with the needs and preferences of certain residents. Unable to “match” people at their level made officers feel less human and more robotic in their dealings because they are not able to engage in a way that feels natural to that particular exchange. Some even claim that de-escalation efforts are disrupted. As one officer explained: One of the best ways for deescalating people is talking to them regularly, and the farther down you go on that ladder, more in the ghetto, their world is like, ‘F this, f that’, right, and so you talk to them how they’re used to talking. But if you have that body camera, and it’s being reviewed… then that comes back on you if you’re saying ‘Fuck this, fuck that’. So now you have to talk like a robot… it changes the interaction. Like it de-humanizes the interaction. Which then makes it easier for an assault to carry out. Like, ‘Is this is a robot talking to me? Fuck this guy.’
Second, officers report the need to operate in a more mechanical fashion when it comes to following legal protocols. Increased reliance on body camera footage in court means more emphasis than ever on “process”, and demonstrating unequivocally that all prescribed steps were taken. Respondents described their conduct as more formulaic and reiterative. For example, prior to wearing cameras, officers were less meticulous about when and how they read a citizen their rights during arrest. Now, as one officer admits, she and her colleagues approach the interaction with a mental checklist, ensuring things are “on there” – that is, in the footage. They even bring the script, or the “card”, rather than rely on memory and risk even the slightest deviation: “Sometimes you arrest someone, and you haven’t [read their rights] quite, like, right away because they don’t have access to a phone anyways, and you’re still trying to figure out who they are, and then there’s this long delay, and then you go do it. So now I find it’s more, like, you just read that card ‘cause you have to make sure that’s on there, and then you start trying to figure out what’s going on. I find people do that a bit more. A lot of officers used to memorize the card – or just tell people, ‘You can call a lawyer – ‘, blah, blah, but now everyone’s reading it word for word, and that’s ‘cause it’s on camera.”
Despite the many ways in which the technology imposes a script and limits what they consider “the craft” of policing, 100% of respondents report preference for the continued use of cameras. As one officer explained, “I like having it because it protects us 99% of the time. And on a one percent it holds police officers that do make mistakes accountable, which really protects the rest of us anyway. Because I don't really want to be working beside somebody who is doing things incorrectly. So, I'm okay with that. I'm just kind of sad that it's come to that.” In an era of high visibility, more avenues for public complaints, and pressures for increased accountability, frontline officers believe body cameras offer much needed protection. By their accounts, it is better to live with the technology than without it, and there is safety in embodying “a robot” behind the lens.