Evaluating the relationship between body-worn cameras and more acccountable or effective policing in South Africa : a critical examination of theory, policy, and practice from an international human rights law perspective

Abstract

Police agencies adopt innovative technologies to prevent crime and improve police effectiveness. However, much remains unknown about how and why these technologies are adopted and, more so, the impact they have. Much of the scholarship on this topic is from Europe and the United States (US). This study draws heavily from this scholarship to critically explore approaches on how best to evaluate the relationship between body-worn cameras (BWCs) and more accountable or effective policing using human rights-compliant evidenced-based approaches from a South African context to advance theory, policy and practice in evaluating the impact of the BWCS on accountability for police use of force.

The study highlights the two problematic issues. The first is the endemic violence in South Africa, for which the police are a significant contributor under an ineffective police accountability system. The second is a promising technology - the body-worn camera (BWC) - whose value proposition has the potential to lead to more accountable policing. The study critically examines the BWC value proposition by reviewing BWC evaluations mainly from the UK and the US and finds that some of the evaluation assumptions and findings are not transferrable and relate more to the context in which they were undertaken.

Chapters 2 and 3 provide a historical, institutional, organisational, and legal context of policing in South Africa, forming the foundation to explore a more practical and effective approach to evaluate the relationship between BWCs and more accountable policing. The findings from these two chapters are that South Africa provides a unique context to evaluate the BWC value proposition regarding police accountability and police use of force compared to the US and the UK. Unlike the UK and the US, South Africa has both a progressive legal and institutional framework and high levels of police violence, thus offering an excellent opportunity to undertake a more effective evaluation of the relationship between BWCs and more accountable policing with adequate statistical power.

The thesis then moves from analysing contextual, theoretical, legal, and institutional frameworks to addressing one of the study's research questions: how could a more contextually sensitive and applied trial be designed to evaluate the potential impact of BWCs upon South African police accountability? From the analysis, the thesis concludes that a human rights-based, evidence-based evaluation of the impact of BWCs upon police accountability processes would be a more appropriate means of trialling the technology in South Africa than any of the methods used in trialling the technology in the US or the UK, which instead rely upon a set of assumptions about behaviour-change in police organisations and hence measure the impact of the technology on officer conduct.

Drawing from these analyses, Chapter 5 curates an evaluation framework that outlines impact indicators and mechanisms for controlling confounding factors to enhance robust causal inferences and incorporate context-specific factors in considering an effective evaluation methodology in South Africa.

In conclusion, the thesis asserts that BWCs provide a real opportunity for more accountable policing. The analyses and evaluation framework provided in the thesis offer a starting point for building a knowledge base of why and how SAPS and IPID, working collaboratively with the Information Regulator, can integrate and implement a BWC program that upholds human rights to enhance police accountability and effectiveness. The study also highlights the importance of tracking the usage of BWCs to determine whether they achieve the intended objective.