Grant Recipient: University of South Carolina
Principal Investigator(s): Geofrey Alpert
Term: 2024 – 2025
Funding: $357,727
Summary: The rapid adoption of body-worn cameras (BWCs) in policing beginning in 2015 has resulted in an enormous volume of footage. In practice, only a slim percentage of this footage is ever reviewed, and agencies are not resourced to provide human audits of the footage.
Recent innovations have made it possible for automated review, but the promise of this technology to improve policing professionalism, demonstrate policy adherence, and improve the police workplace is as of yet unproven. Our team is actively engaged in a multisite experiment that explores two relevant areas of this technology. First, we are testing whether the system is able to enhance officer professionalism by providing near real-time feedback on officer behavior. Second, because this is a brand-new technology, we examine the implementation in both municipal police and county sheriff contexts in order to learn what works, what doesn’t, and why.
These findings will set the stage for the next wave of technology-enhanced policing and management.
