Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, Technology / 26.03.2019
Have Police Body-Worn Cameras Lived Up To Their Expectations?
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_48127" align="alignleft" width="150"] Dr. Lum[/caption]
Cynthia Lum, PhD
Professor of Criminology
Law and Society
George Mason University
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Body-worn cameras (BWCs) are one of the most rapidly diffusing technologies in policing today, costing agencies and their municipalities millions of dollars. Recent estimates by the Bureau of Justice statistics indicate that over 60% of local police departments have already acquired BWCs. This adoption has been propelled by highly publicized officer-involved shootings and other death-in-custody events in this decade, as well as more generally by continuing concerns regarding police-citizen relationships, particularly within communities of color.
All of these contexts prompt the need to better understand the impacts and effects of BWCs as they diffuse rapidly into policing. Specifically, do BWCs achieve the expectations that citizens, communities, and the police have of them?
This article provides a narrative review of 70 studies, representing over 110 findings, about what we know from research across six important Body-worn cameras domains:
(1) the impact of BWCs on officer behavior;
(2) officer attitudes about BWCs;
(3) the impact of BWCs on citizen behavior;
(4) citizen and community attitudes about BWCs;
(5) the impact of BWCs on criminal investigations; and (6) the impact of BWCs on law enforcement organizations.
Dr. Lum[/caption]
Cynthia Lum, PhD
Professor of Criminology
Law and Society
George Mason University
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Body-worn cameras (BWCs) are one of the most rapidly diffusing technologies in policing today, costing agencies and their municipalities millions of dollars. Recent estimates by the Bureau of Justice statistics indicate that over 60% of local police departments have already acquired BWCs. This adoption has been propelled by highly publicized officer-involved shootings and other death-in-custody events in this decade, as well as more generally by continuing concerns regarding police-citizen relationships, particularly within communities of color.
All of these contexts prompt the need to better understand the impacts and effects of BWCs as they diffuse rapidly into policing. Specifically, do BWCs achieve the expectations that citizens, communities, and the police have of them?
This article provides a narrative review of 70 studies, representing over 110 findings, about what we know from research across six important Body-worn cameras domains:
(1) the impact of BWCs on officer behavior;
(2) officer attitudes about BWCs;
(3) the impact of BWCs on citizen behavior;
(4) citizen and community attitudes about BWCs;
(5) the impact of BWCs on criminal investigations; and (6) the impact of BWCs on law enforcement organizations.
Dr. Jeremiah Schuur[/caption]
Jeremiah Schuur, MD, MHS FACEP
Physician-in-chief for emergency medicine at Lifespan and Chair of the department of Emergency Medicine
Brown
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Firearm injury is a leading cause of injury and death in the United States. Many physician groups advocate for evidence-based policies, such as universal background checks, to reduce this morbidity and mortality.
We studied contributions of the 25 largest political action committees (PACs) affiliated with physician professional groups during the 2016 election cycle and found that almost all gave more money to political candidates who voted against universal background checks and were endorsed by the NRA.
These PACs contributed to more than twice as many incumbent US Senate candidates who voted against an amendment to expand firearm background checks than those who voted for the amendment. In the US House of Representatives, the pattern of giving was similar. These PACs gave $2.8 million more to candidates who did not sponsor a bill to expand background checks than to those who did. Finally, these physician PACs were more than twice as likely to contribute to and gave almost $1.5 million dollars more to candidates rated A by the NRA.
Dr. Coupet[/caption]
Edouard Coupet Jr, MD, MS
Assistant Professor
Department of Emergency Medicine
Yale School of Medicine
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: For many individuals with nonfatal firearm injuries, their only point of contact with the healthcare system may be the emergency department. Both hospital-based violence intervention programs and counseling and safe firearm storage have shown promise in reducing the burden of firearm injury.
In this study, one third of individuals with firearm injuries presented to non-trauma centers. Only 1 out of 5 firearm injuries were assault injuries that led to admission to trauma centers, the population most likely to receive interventions to reduce re-injury.
Dr. Thompson[/caption]
Rebecca R. Thompson, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Scholar
Department of Psychological Science
University of California, Irvine
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Our research team has been interested in how people respond to the repeated threat of disaster exposure for many years. We recently published a review of the literature on evacuation from natural disasters, and one of our main findings was that there have been no studies that include assessments of individuals’ intentions, perceptions, and psychological states assessed prior to an approaching storm’s landfall – all prior research has been retrospective, and recall is undoubtedly biased and unreliable. Our goal in undertaking this study was to fill this hole in the literature. We sought to assess individuals' responses to Hurricane Irma in the days leading up to and immediately after its landfall in the State of Florida.
Faiz Gani, PhD
Postdoctoral research fellow
Department of Surgery
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Firearm related injuries are a leading cause of injury and death in the United States, yet, due to combination of factors, limited data exist that evaluate these injuries, particularly among younger patients (patients younger than 18 years).
The objective of this study was to describe emergency department utilization for firearm related injuries and to quantitate the financial burden associated with these injuries.
In our study of over 75,000 emergency department visits, we observed that each year, over 8,300 children and adolescents present to the emergency department for the treatment / management of a gunshot injury. Within this sub-population of patients, we observed that these injuries are most frequent among patients aged 15-17 years and while these injuries decreased over time initially, were observed to increase again towards the end of the time period studied.
In addition to describing the clinical burden of these injuries, we also sought to describe the financial burden associated with these injuries. For patients discharged from the emergency department, the average (median) charge associated with their care was $2,445, while for patients admitted as inpatients for further care, the average (median) charge was $44,966.
Collectively these injuries resulted in $2.5 billion in emergency department and hospital charges over the time period studied. This translates to an annual financial burden of approximately $270 million.
Prof. Kleiman[/caption]
Prof. Mark A. R. Kleiman PhD
Affiliated Faculty, NYU Wagner; Professor of Public Policy
NYU Marron Institute of Urban Management
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: As state after state legalizes the sale of cannabis, the question of cannabis-impaired driving is getting more attention. There is evidence that the practice has become more common, both because cannabis use - and especially heavy, frequent use - has increased and because a distressingly large fraction of cannabis users believe, falsely, that stoned driving is safe.
The natural response to the problem is to treat cannabis on a par with alcohol: fairly severe criminal penalties for impaired driving, with impairment defined by a specific level of the drug in the body. The paper argues that this would be a mistake, for four independent reasons:
- While cannabis makes driving riskier, it does so by about a factor of two, with no strongly observed dependency on dosage. Alcohol, by contrast, has a steep dose-effect curve. At the legal limit of 0.08% blood alcohol content by weight, the relative risk of drunk driving is at least eight; at 0.15%, which is fairly common, the relative risk has been estimated at 30-50. So there is no justification for punishing stoned driving as severely as we punish drunk driving.
- The lack of evidence of a strong dose-effect relationship suggests that a legal standard based on the content of cannabinoids in blood may not be appropriate.
- Even if a blood standard were valid, the lack of a breath test would make enforcing that standard nearly impossible as a practical matter.
- The long and unpredictable course of cannabis metabolism means that frequent users will be at risk of failing a drug test even when they are neither subjectively intoxicated nor objectively impaired. Worse, they would have no way of judging in advance whether or not driving would be legal. The result would be a re-criminalization of cannabis use through the back door. 
Dr. Epling[/caption]
John W. Epling, Jr., M.D., M.S.Ed
Professor of Family and Community Medicine
Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine
Roanoke, VA
USPSTF Task Force Member
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Intimate partner violence, often known as domestic violence, can have devastating consequences to one’s health and wellbeing. It can lead to mental illness, substance abuse, unintended pregnancy, and even death. This is a serious public health issue in America: one in three men—and even more women—experience it in their lifetimes. Because this is such an important topic, and the last time we made a recommendation on it was in 2013, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force reviewed the most recent evidence to determine how clinicians can help prevent the negative health effects of intimate partner violence.
Dr. Smith[/caption]
Gary A. Smith, MD, DrPH
Director, Center for Injury Research and Policy
Nationwide Children’s Hospital
Columbus, OH
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: When residential fires happen at night while people are sleeping, deaths are more likely to occur. Smoke alarms are important for preventing these deaths, yet many young children don’t wake up to traditional high-pitch tone alarms. Children sleep longer and deeper than adults and require louder sounds to awaken than adults. For these reasons, children are less likely to awaken and escape a nighttime home fire. 
