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Caught On Camera, But Not Convicted: Understanding The Embeddedness of Racial Bias In Police Body Cameras

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Abstract/Contents

Abstract
Police body cameras have been popularized as a tool that will be used to hold officers accountable after unlawfully engaging in excessive and deadly force with civilians. However, after being widely adopted by police departments, instances of excessive force and deadly force have not drastically declined. In fact, several instances of excessive and deadly force have been caught on police body camera and have shown victims that were unarmed, compliant, or nonviolent. Though footage of the interactions may exist, offending officers are often not charged with criminal behavior or are not convicted. These occurrences disproportionately affect people of marginalized backgrounds. This thesis seeks to explore the way that police body cameras can create biased, pro-police narratives and the surrounding social and technical environment that supports this bias. The environment that supports police body cameras is explored by analyzing legal cases, news reports, academic studies, and historical records of the relationship between police, technologies, and marginalized communities. Due to the environment in which they exist, an environment that has historically allowed police technologies to criminalize marginalized people and justify the actions of law enforcement personnel, it is argued that police body cameras cannot capture objective insights into violent officer-civilian interactions. This thesis argues that police technologies, even ones designed to increase transparency and social good, fall short due to protections in place for officers, technical limitations of the body camera, bias embedded into police data, and historical criminalization of marginalized people. This understanding of the police body camera’s social environment is used to directly examine visual and auditory elements of body camera footage that displays violent officer-civilian interactions. This thesis concludes with paths forward for decreasing violent officer-civilian interactions, including structural reform, increased consideration of social contexts when policing, and defunding the police.

Description

Type of resource text
Date created May 2021

Creators/Contributors

Author Kilson, Jayla O.
Degree granting institution Stanford University, Department of Science, Technology, and Society
Advisor Li, Xiaochang

Subjects

Subject Science Technology and Society
Subject Stanford University
Subject Honors program
Subject policing
Subject social constructivism
Subject equity
Subject racial justice
Subject race
Subject police body cameras
Subject body cameras
Subject marginalized communities
Subject defund police
Subject abolish police
Subject racial inequity
Subject police technology
Subject surveillance
Subject film analysis
Subject case analysis
Genre Thesis

Bibliographic information

Location https://purl.stanford.edu/rn748wc3781

Access conditions

Use and reproduction
User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).

Preferred citation

Kilson, Jayla O. and Li, Xiaochang (2021). Caught On Camera, But Not Convicted:
Understanding The Embeddedness of Racial Bias In Police Body Cameras. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/rn748wc3781

Collection

Stanford University, Program in Science, Technology and Society, Honors Theses

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Contact information

jkilson@alumni.stanford.edu

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