Body-worn video (BWV) technology has received significant attention recently due to its perceived benefits for police. Common claims include improved evidence capture, increased police professionalism and enhanced police legitimacy and transparency. This technology has been successfully trialled in the USA and UK, and has been shown to have considerable benefits to community-police interactions and officer professionalism.

Despite the increased use of BWV, only a small number of empirical studies explore the effect of BWV on police professionalism and conduct. These studies generally do not use strong experimental methodologies, thereby lacking an evidentiary basis to measure the true value of BWV. Furthermore, most of the existing studies are based in the USA and the UK; in Australia, the use of BWV is likely to differ in context given differences in community relations, access to firearms and legislation.

The NSW Police Force has recently begun implementing BWV. In conjunction with the rollout of this technology across the state, the Strategic Research Team within the Professional Standards Command of the NSW Police Force is conducting a study into the impact of BWV on behaviour and professionalism. This is the first study of its kind conducted in Australia, and is expected to provide valuable insights into the role of this technology in Australian policing.

One of the most significant challenges when designing research in the law enforcement field is to ensure police continue to be operationally effective, while still rigorously evaluating and understanding the changes being introduced. For example, in order to conduct a randomised control trial in a policing environment, it is generally necessary to use officer shifts rather than individual officers as the sample. This has significant implications on methodology and is one aspect that is explored in this research. Other important factors that were considered as part of this project include the Hawthorne effect (whereby individuals may modify their behaviour in response to the perception of being observed) and Stable Unit Treatment Value Assumption.

Given the role BWV is expected to play in Australasian policing, replicating this evaluation across multiple jurisdictions will produce a robust evidence-base. With this in mind, the methodology has been designed to ensure it is translatable to other Australian and New Zealand jurisdictions.

This presentation will explore experimental design and methodologies in the context of an operational policing environment. Current BWV project findings will also be offered.