Literature Review

BWVs have become increasingly popular in law enforcement, with several studies demonstrating their effectiveness in ‘civilising’ the interaction between officers and citizens (Choi et al., 2023). The evidence is strong and consistent for some outcomes, i.e. reducing citizen complaints of police misconduct (Ariel et al., 2017; Lum et al., 2020), reducing the use of force by police officers (Williams Jr et al., 2021), increasing conviction rates in some crime categories (Petersen et al., 2021, 2023), and increasing transparency and accountability to improve citizen perceptions of the police (Ariel et al. 2020a, b). However, there are also concerns about the potential adverse effects of BWVs, such as privacy violations, data security risks, and legal and ethical issues (Adams & Mastracci, 2017). The purpose of this chapter is to review the evidence, with particular attention to studies on non-police settings.