Body cameras won't solve police use-of-force issues

The Kodiak Police Department's recent suspension of body cameras has renewed debate in Alaska. Contrary to the common view that body cameras can resolve police use of force issues with objective evidence – police force is in the eye of the beholder. This has huge implications for the body camera policy debate that no one seems to be addressing.

Selective perception

Body camera video may be impartial, but people aren't. By the time we're adults we've amassed unique life experiences that foster assumptions, motivations and ideologies that affect our perception of reality. Two studies illustrate this.

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In one, researchers asked football fans from rival schools to watch video from a game between the two teams. The home team said they saw the rival players make twice as many rule infractions as the rivals witnessed.

The reactions of the two groups were shaped by their school loyalty, but were the fans aware of their bias? Probably not. We're seldom aware of the impact of our biases. Our perceptions are our reality.

In another study, two groups watched a video of political protests. One group was told the protesters were demonstrating against abortion rights. The other group was told the protesters were demonstrating against the military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy. The degree to which viewers perceived the protests as obstructive, intimidating and threatening depended on whether the viewers agreed or disagreed with the position the protesters were represented as taking.

My perceptions are the right ones

Many of us think our perception is more objective than everyone else's. so we conclude anyone who disagrees with us is unreasonable. Researchers call this the "illusion of objectivity." It's an illusion even our Supreme Court experiences.

In Scott v. Harris (2007), the court addressed a police officer's use of deadly force against a high-speed driver. Ruling in favor of the officer, the court held "the video tape … speak(s) for itself" — "no reasonable jury" could conclude the driver did not pose a deadly risk to the public.

Researchers subsequently showed the video to over 1,000 members of the public and found a sizable minority disagreed with the court's assertions.

Our beliefs become self-fulfilling

The stronger our beliefs, the more we filter out evidence to the contrary and give supporting evidence more credence. Participants in a study were presented with negative and positive scientific evidence about the deterrent effect of capital punishment. They selectively credited the evidence that confirmed their pre-existing belief and gave less or no credence to the contradictory evidence. And they doubled down on their beliefs – becoming more certain because science backed them up.

It isn't a leap to think that body camera video – like scientific evidence –may actually deepen previously formed opinions, biases and polarization.

Police use of force is in the eye of the beholder

Body camera video won't cleanse people of their life experiences or the subjective expectations, biases and perceptions their experiences engender. Only police legitimacy will do that. Officers will have to be perceived as fair and impartial for their body camera video to be viewed fairly and impartially.

How can officers shape how people view body camera video?

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There's plenty of research that establishes people care more about how police treat them than the end result of the encounter. Officers who give citizens a chance to voice their views, who are respectful, who make decisions fairly, and give explanations for their actions are seen as wielding more legitimate authority.

Of course, not every police-citizen encounter permits officers to explain their actions or let citizens voice their views. But many do.

As the Alaska Department of Public Safety Academy Commander Lt. Chad Goeden explained to me, it's not if there's going to be a use of force incident that gets a lot of scrutiny, it's when. He teaches recruits to see most police-citizen encounters as a chance to make a deposit or a withdrawal toward the day they will be judged in a use of force incident. How they and their agency's body camera video will be viewed depends on how much legitimacy they've deposited in advance.

Val Van Brocklin  is a former state and federal prosecutor in Alaska who now trains and writes for law enforcement and other criminal justice professionals and groups nationwide. She lives in Anchorage. A version of this article is published on PoliceOne.com.

The views expressed here are the writer's and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary@alaskadispatch.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@alaskadispatch.com or click here to submit via any web browser.