BOSTON (WHDH) - Boston Police commissioner William Evans has released a preliminary report detailing the first look at statistics in the first year of a body worn camera program for police officers.
The program was a pilot program in which 100 officers wore cameras while on patrols in five police districts and as part of the Youth Violence Strike Force. In total, 281 officers took part of the program.
The report focused on two areas — citizen complaints and use of force. In the findings, compiled by researchers at Northeastern University, body-worn cameras “may generate small benefits to the civility of police-citizen civilian encounters.”
According to the analysis, body-worn cameras reduced the number of citizen complaints by a small amount — 12 over 12 months. The report also noted that citizen complaints have declined over years by a total of 41 percent.
The report determined that body-worn cameras did not reduce use-of-force complaints by a significant amount — seven fewer reports compared to a control group. The report says use of force reports have also declined since 2013 by 54 percent.
The report will continue through May 2018 with a final report due in June 2018 and will focus on police interactions, lawfulness of the police actions, racial disparities, productivity, community feedback, and police officer feedback.
The preliminary analysis can be found here.
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