Police Body-Worn Cameras: Media and the New Discourse of Police Reform

Focusing on discourses surrounding the introduction and use of body-worn cameras, this book contends that the principal catalyst for equipping frontline 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.

Christopher J. Schneider is a professor of sociology at Brandon University.

Erick Laming is an assistant professor of criminology in the Department of Sociology at Trent University.