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Rialto, a working-class city just outside Los Angeles, became best known for pioneering the use of body cameras on police officers.
Over the past year all 70 of its uniformed officers have been kitted out with the oblong devices, about the size of stubby cigars, and the results have emboldened police forces elsewhere in the US and in the UK to follow suit.
But Rialto’s randomized controlled study has seized attention because it offers scientific – and encouraging – findings: after cameras were introduced in February 2012, public complaints against officers plunged 88% compared with the previous 12 months. Officers’ use of force fell by 60%.
“When you know you’re being watched you behave a little better. That’s just human nature,” said Farrar. “As an officer you act a bit more professional, follow the rules a bit better.”
Video clips provided by the department showed dramatic chases on foot – you can hear the officer panting – and by car that ended with arrests, and without injury. Complaints often stemmed not from operational issues but “officers’ mouths”, said the chief. “With a camera they are more conscious of how they speak and how they treat people.”
The same applied to the public; once informed they were being filmed, even drunk or agitated people tended to become more polite, Farrar said. Those who lodged frivolous or bogus complaints about officers tended to retract them when shown video of the incidents. “It’s like, ‘Oh, I hadn’t seen it that way.'”
Cameras made officers more careful about using force. “It’s still part of the business, they still do it. But now they make better use of what we call verbal judo.”
Fewer complaints and calmer policing, said Farrar, would reduce lawsuits and expensive payouts.
In a country where police use force against black people at a rate of 7 times the rate of whites, where about 1 in every 1,000 black men can expect to be killed by police, and where, despite only making up 13 percent of the US population, Black Americans are two-and-a-half times as likely as white Americans to be killed by the police, mandating body cameras are most certainly a step in the right direction.
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