Twelfth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

The path to introduction of body worn cameras (BWC) by the police in five major democracies, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, Israel, and Uruguay has been different, illuminating the different societies as well as the efficacy of the new technology. The nature of the police legitimacy crisis in these five countries illustrates different societal forces: internal social movements; economic responses to national and global exigencies; seeking effective methods for fighting corruption in the police service; or a method of professionalizing the agency. In the UK, a major impetus has been coping with the austerity regime imposed on British departments. In the US, high profile police-citizen incidents such as in Ferguson and Baltimore; as well as constitutional challenges to “stop and frisk” strategies. In Germany, largely because of perceived increases in assaults against police there has been BWC experimentation and implementation. In Israel, calls to implement BWC were borne out of pressures to increase police accountability, and to reduce the use of police violence, particularly with minority groups in deeply divided societies. Finally, Uruguay attempted to modernize and professionalize the conduct of police patrols. The various rationales in these five major democracies shed light on the challenges to police legitimacy in the rapidly changing and globalizing world. The intersectionality as well as the differences between the motivations to endorse this multibillion-dollar industry is discussed.