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Police Concerns Over Body-Worn Cameras—the Legitimator, the Nihilist, and the Agnostic: A Herald From Cyprus

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Angelo Constantinou at Open University of Cyprus
Angelo Constantinou
Markianos Kokkinos at Open University of Cyprus
Markianos Kokkinos
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The article explores the Cypriot police officers’ projections on the access of the front-line officers and their supervisors to the recorded material, the ‘censoring’ of police discretion, the improvement of procedural justice, and the respective citizens’ reactions. For collecting the data, a web-based survey—accessed via the intranet of Cypol—has been conducted among 449 sworn police officers, whose responses cast light on the anticipated ways in which officers could possibly react, should the individual bearing of cameras became a mandate. Findings derive from qualitative and quantitative data analysis and overall point out that the great majority (82%) of officers—the legitimators—endorse BWCs, a smaller percentage (11%) of officers reject them—the nihilists—and the smallest faction (7%) are unsure—the agnostics—about this prospect. Furthermore, male officers strongly agree with the use of BWCs to a greater extent than female officers and, also, officers engaged in operational duties, as opposed to other types of duties, support the use of BWCs to a significant degree. In all, the forthcoming of BWCs is conditionally, yet extensively endorsed.
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International Criminology (2023) 3:77–91
https://doi.org/10.1007/s43576-023-00081-6
Police Concerns Over Body‑Worn Cameras—the Legitimator,
theNihilist, andtheAgnostic: AHerald From Cyprus
AngeloG.Constantinou1 · KokkinosMarkianos1
Received: 5 September 2022 / Accepted: 12 January 2023 / Published online: 1 February 2023
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023
Abstract
The article explores the Cypriot police officers’ projections on the access of the front-line officers and their supervisors to the
recorded material, the ‘censoring’ of police discretion, the improvement of procedural justice, and the respective citizens’
reactions. For collecting the data, a web-based survey—accessed via the intranet of Cypol—has been conducted among 449
sworn police officers, whose responses cast light on the anticipated ways in which officers could possibly react, should the
individual bearing of cameras became a mandate. Findings derive from qualitative and quantitative data analysis and overall
point out that the great majority (82%) of officers—the legitimators—endorse BWCs, a smaller percentage (11%) of officers
reject them—the nihilists—and the smallest faction (7%) are unsure—the agnostics—about this prospect. Furthermore, male
officers strongly agree with the use of BWCs to a greater extent than female officers and, also, officers engaged in operational
duties, as opposed to other types of duties, support the use of BWCs to a significant degree. In all, the forthcoming of BWCs
is conditionally, yet extensively endorsed.
Keywords Cyprus· Disciplinary action· Front-line· Legitimacy· Procedural justice
Introduction
Policing, as many other present-day professions, is all the
more becoming dependent on technological advancements
and innovations. Technological upgrading and moderniza-
tion are key elements of intelligence-led policing which,
based on knowledge, evidence, and data, aims to improve
the efficiency of police services, actions, and decisions
(Joyce etal., 2013). Technology, as a facilitating instru-
ment is becoming an integral extension of law enforcement,
redefining many aspects of policing. This includes, among
other, the installation and use of portable cameras on police
uniforms, helmets, etc. Although mobile recording technol-
ogy is not a new invention, its increasing employment and
subsequent acceptance of and use by members of police, is
a relatively recent development.
Unsurprisingly, the unequal contexts and settings within
which body-worn cameras (BWCs) are deployed (Huff etal.,
2020) creates unique risks, tied to legal and social impli-
cations (Bromberg etal., 2020; Coudert etal., 2015) that
have not been satisfactorily explored, and as such require
further attention (Bud, 2016). The dichotomy of benefit/cost
of using body-worn cameras by police officers remains at the
forefront of many scholarly discussions and reviews (Laufs
& Borrion, 2022). And the substance of such (for/against)
arguments usually revolves around citizens' concerns about
the invasion of their privacy, the cautiousness of the way
police act, the examination and monitoring of the recorded
material, as well as the concerns of the police officers them-
selves regarding changes in their working conditions and the
protection of their very privacy (Georgitsopoulos, 2018);
concepts which are examined accordingly throughout the
text.
It is of no surprise that factions of police officers fear for
violations of their privacy, as well as the reshaping of their
working conditions, since they themselves become suspi-
cious of the use of recorded material, in terms of exercis-
ing punitive control over them (Pelfrey & Keener, 2016).
This concern first manifested in police reactions in the mid-
1990s, when cameras were first installed in patrol vehicles
(Pilant, 1995), however, as time lapsed and more police
officers got their hands on such devices and consequentially
* Angelo G. Constantinou
angelos.constantinou@ouc.ac.cy
1 School ofEconomics andManagement, Open University
ofCyprus, Open University ofCyprus 33, Giannou
Kranidioti Avenue 2220, Latsia, Cyprus
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