Police Body-Worn Cameras and Mental Health Calls

Police body-worn cameras (BWC) have been around for several years, and a large number of studies have examined their acceptance by officers and their impact on use-of-force incidents.  Recent research expands on more subtle aspects of the use of body cameras.  This week Dr. Vincent Mousseau discusses his recent research, looking at officer’s views of activating body cameras when engaged with a person experiencing a mental health event. 

Main Topics

• Officers provided diverse opinions on the proper use of BWC when dealing with these calls for service.
• The research finds officers continue to show the need for discretion when their experiences conflict with policy.  Thus, developing a comprehensive policy is a complex endeavor for police leaders.
• Streaming the BWC images with mental health professions is an unexplored option.

Don't forget to like, FOLLOW, and share. Sharing this podcast or an episode is one of the best complements I can receive, which will help grow the show.

And don't forget to provide a review. Giving five stars is never a bad idea.

Feel free to email me your comments using the "send us a text" option (above), or at the following email address: policeinservicetrainingpodcast@gmail.com

You can also contact me at: Bluesky: @policeinservice.bsky.social

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the author and guests, and are not authorized by and do not necessarily reflect those of the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services or the State of New York.

Transcript

Welcome to the Police in Service Training Podcast.
This podcast is dedicated to providing research evidence to street-level police officers and
command staff alike.
The program is intended to help the police and law enforcement community create better
programs, understand challenging policies, and dispel the myths of police officer behavior.
I'm your host, Scott Phillips.
In the past several years, there has been increased attention on the way police officers
respond to calls for service when an individual has some type of mental health challenge.
It is suggested that up to 11% of police interventions involve people with mental health disorders,
and some research indicates that as many as one-half of all calls that involve someone
with a mental health disorder is not dispatched as such.
In other words, in many calls involving persons with a mental health challenge, a police officer
is walking into a situation they are not properly prepared to handle.
It is also unfortunate that most of these calls do not involve criminal activity but
can often result in an officer having to use some type of physical force.
Adding to the complexity of these types of incidents is the proper use of the officer's
body camera.
While these tools have found acceptance in policing circles, there are still situations
where a police body camera recording may not be appropriate, and police agencies try to
integrate these considerations into their policy language.
To help us better understand the use of body cameras when a police officer is dealing with
a subject who has some type of mental health disorder, we are joined by Professor Vincent
Mousseau.
Dr. Mousseau is currently a postdoctoral researcher affiliated with the Canadian Research Chair
in Comparative Public Management at the Émcov Nationale de l'Administration Publique in
Montreal, Canada, and the Center for Forensic Science at the University of Technology Sydney
in Australia.
Thanks for coming on the podcast, Vincent.
Thanks for inviting me.
Glad you could be here.
All right.
So when I found your research, I have to be pretty clear about this, I thought, well,
this is different.
It's a different consideration when talking about body cameras.
Can you explain why you and your colleagues became interested in the link between body
cameras and dealing with mental health calls?
Yeah, but I have to say, colleagues and I are primarily focused on studying the use
of new technologies into police practices, so into policing tools such as body worn cameras,
for example.
And our initial research with the Quebec Police Service aimed to examine both the potential
benefits and the potential drawbacks of using those devices.
But when we were in the pilot program, it became very, I would say, obvious to us that
there was an opportunity to look at the interaction of how body worn cameras can be used in those
type of situations, because the program includes different activation policies depending on
the type of intervention police officers were facing.
So it really allowed us to go beyond just the technology in itself and also focus on
how can it shape police decision making in such situations.
Very good.
Now, before we get into your specific study, why is this issue, body cameras and mental
health calls, those calls for service, why is this important to policing?
I think we could argue about this question for the whole podcast, but I think it really
comes down to three main issues.
The first thing, as you mentioned in the introduction, a significant promotion of police interventions
involve individuals experiencing some form of mental health difficulties, I would say,
and police service are really looking to actively improve their responses to these type of calls.
So to better support the people involved, whether we talk about police officers or the
citizens.
So that might be one of the reasons why it is important.
The second one also, research to date show no clear or I would say consistent evidence
that body worn cameras change officers or citizens behavior.
This raises really important questions about if they have any added value, especially in
a high sensitive cases such as when we intervene with people in mental health crisis.
So should the interaction be recorded at all?
If so, how should it be recorded?
I would say the third reason might be that there is at the moment currently no standardized
guidelines on how body worn cameras should be used in those situations.
So what should activation policies specify?
Should it be mandatory for police officers to record such interventions or no?
So those situations I think are really at the core of why should we look at the use
of body worn cameras in those mental health calls.
Right, I was reminded of some of the policies I've reviewed, taken a look at and they deal
with proper time or not to record when there are children involved.
So this is the same kind of idea that there might be times when it's inappropriate.
In your paper you mentioned a few points about mental health calls that I wanted to ask you
about.
Now the first you had mentioned crisis intervention teams and the co-responder models.
I'm aware that there has been a large push for these in the U.S., but I don't really
know how these are playing out overall.
And when we had planned this conversation originally, you had mentioned that systematic
reviews have offered mixed findings on the existing, on this topic of body cameras and
or I'm sorry, crisis intervention teams.
So in other words, we're still not sure if crisis intervention teams are a good idea.
Is that, is it that there's been very little funding for this type of research or it's
just a hard topic to study?
Yeah, I have to admit that I'm not an expert in those subjects, but I think both models
are as you mentioned are particularly difficult to study using high quality research designs.
For example, having some control groups and having some experimental groups.
So this means that it's hard for us at some times to really know for sure whether the
outcomes that we're seeing is truly based or caused by the model in itself and not by
any other kind of funding factors such as maybe the characteristics of the person that
is in crisis or the officers that is involved or the timing or the location of the intervention.
So all those kind of variables that may come into play on how the outcome is actually the
outcome that we're seeing is it really caused by the model.
So and I think that this challenge is also even greater because both models or the CIT
teams and the corresponding models are often implemented in very different ways across
jurisdictions so they can vary in the hours of preparation, the staffing configurations
or the criteria that really define when do they respond to incidents.
So all those variations make comparison difficult for researchers and also to have, I would
say, clear responses that are not updated really fast as programs evolve.
So yeah, at the point we just don't have any clear or definitive answer, but I still might
say that this doesn't mean that those two approaches cannot have helpful outcomes or
be helpful in specific situations, it's just that at the moment when we look at the larger
picture, we don't have yet a definitive answer to provide to police officers and police
leaders.
Yeah, I think a lot of the idea about crisis intervention teams took steam because of the
problems that occurred when a police officer showed up to a mental health call and it went
south on people.
So people think, you know, police agencies might think this is almost like AI, this is
a great thing, but there's been no research or very little research to support it one
way or the other.
Now, here's my second question.
And again, from your paper, now you had mentioned that using body worn cameras during the mental
health related interventions is expected to have possible drawbacks.
Can you briefly discuss some of those drawbacks?
Yeah, some of the drawbacks that we found in the literature that is that some previous
research suggests that when officers know they are being recorded in an intervention,
for example, by using a body worn cameras, their behavior might change.
So in tense situations, for example, they may become overly polite or restrain their
movement or how they would usually behave because of the cameras.
So even in contexts where they should use a farmer tone or use of some kind of threats
of using forces, they might not do so because they know they are actually being recorded.
So that might be some of the one of the drawback.
Also, in other specific contexts, like some research look at the intervention when we
record victims and results show that being filmed for victims can increase their discomfort
or make it harder for them to establish trust and communication with the police officers.
So when we talk about intervention with people in mental health crisis building, I would
say a good relationship and a good connection is really central to de-escalation.
So the presence of a camera out there may in some case works against the very goal of
the police intervention in those situations.
Right.
Yeah.
OK, so let's dive into your study.
It explores how police officers perceive their use of body cameras in a mental health intervention
and how they adapted their practices to using the technology.
Can you briefly explain how you and your colleagues did your study?
Yeah, so to put it simply, I would say our data comes from a larger project.
We followed a six month pilot program in Quebec where police body working cameras were tested
in six different police departments within the same police force.
And in three of these departments, officers were asked to activate their cameras when
they respond to mental health crisis.
In a fourth department, those situations were not, I would say, mandatory recorded,
but they could do so.
So there were a little bit more discretion there in their judgments.
So this allows us to compare really different ways cameras can be used in practice.
And after this pilot project, we invited officers to take part in interviews and we interviewed
61 officers.
Most of them actually weren't a camera during the pilot, so they could really share their
experience, how they felt when they were using the body worn cameras.
OK, good.
And we asked them in the interviews how they felt about their camera.
Did it help?
Did you thought that it had any drop box on those kind of interventions?
So that was about it.
How we did the study.
Yeah, but that's pretty intense because you're having the officers use the body cameras and
then you're following up with interviews.
So that's in my opinion, that's better than just a survey.
If surveys have a place, I never want to be too critical about research.
There's always good, better, invest kind of stuff.
But that seems pretty, pretty, pretty good study.
OK, so tell us what were the results.
So what are some of the key findings you had?
I think if we look at how do police officers believe the use of body worn cameras can be
helpful or not, the main finding would be that police officers' opinion is really mixed.
Again, sorry for that.
Some participants expressed mostly support on the use of body worn cameras into those
kind of interventions.
But we also had some others that share some concerns about do they have any added value
for real in those kind of interventions?
Are they appropriate in those specific settings?
So we really saw those two options, I would say.
So on the one hand, participants believe that well image could protect police officers in
the future against misinterpretation of behavior, misinterpretation of evidence or those kind
of things, especially in use of force incident.
They could also believe that body worn cameras footage would help them to provide evidence
that the people that were experiencing the mental health crisis were actually threatening
them or resisting to their arrest.
So they really believe that in those kind of situations, body worn cameras can be helpful.
And even just the mere presence of a body worn camera could help them to intervene with
those people.
OK, good.
And as I mentioned, we had the opposite.
So some participants shared that they were concerned about if they change anything, they
didn't experience that it changed anything at all during their intervention.
Some people said that, well, considering their past experience with people in crisis, they
felt that people that might be naked or intoxicated, this may lead to severe, I would say,
privacy issues with those people.
So maybe people that at the moment at a specific a person at a specific moment that is
experiencing a mental health crisis, when he come back to normal, I would say it doesn't
want to have some footage of him in those really bad situation.
And so he doesn't want to have footage of those kind of things.
So that might be also one of the key findings.
And we also had some people that were even more critical saying just the presence of
cameras could lead people to be to become more paranoid than they were before because
they believe you're part of any conspiracy or you believe that you are actually recording
them as like they didn't ask you to record or they don't want to.
So this could also be a drawback of using some body wearing cameras.
So the officer might be contributing to what they're already feeling is causing their
distress.
Yeah.
And as I mentioned, this is not what we want to do when we're in the escalation situation.
We really want to connect with the people and try to find a better solution and having
to resolve this by making an arrest or using forces.
So this might have some issues during the intervention.
Now, you also mentioned something in the article.
I remember live streaming interventions or live streaming the interactions to coordinate
with the mental health professional.
I in my wildest dreams, I had never thought that would be something.
Can you can you can you discuss that for a moment?
Yeah, I don't know about other companies, but I know that the recent action projects, so
the recent body worn cameras that are produced by Axon, which is one of the biggest company
in the field, have live streaming capabilities.
So it's really I think it's people are looking forward to this.
But as you may remember in the article, we found mixed opinion about the use of such
technology. So we had some officers saying, well, that might help us because in areas
where we usually have longer response time for those mental health professionals, that
could be helpful. I could live stream a situation and say, what do you think should be the
next move? What is the best solution in such a scenario?
But also, others believe that, again, on the opposite side, they would really feel
watched and having people behind their back just looking at them and that this could
finally distract them for from their intervention and having the best way to succeed in this
event intervention. So we always find like those two perspective, those two way of
thinking about the use of body worn cameras in those situation, which I believe is also
like an evidence that we need more research into those field because there is no clear
answer when we talk to experienced police officers about what should be the next move.
Should we go with all all scenarios or all interventions should be recorded by those
body worn cameras? Or again, you should keep, I would say some form of judgment or some
form of discretion to be able to really have the best of it.
Yeah, that's like I say, it sounds very interesting to live stream, but I can I can
imagine a police officer somehow they got the body camera going on.
It's being listened to by somebody that they're not talking to or interaction with
other than like on the radio or by phone or something like that.
And that might interfere with their ability to maintain situational awareness in case
something bad occurs. And again, the second guessing of somebody listening to what I'm
trying to say to somebody and you can hear them if I'm if I'm saying something that I
think is accurate and correct. And also I hear a major sigh from the person who I'm
corresponding with in the background on the phone.
That would lead me to say, OK, what the hell did I just say wrong?
So this is as nice as this sounds.
It's just one of those things that might be a little bit more complicated than than simply
saying, OK, let's just live stream these things.
Yeah, and there is always like one of the issues of body worn cameras is what we call
the perspective bias. We have to remember that the camera doesn't get all of it.
So even though like it's a really nice product that can record many of the things that is
going on into the intervention, maybe it missed also some things that the actual police
officers can see, can hear and experience around him.
So if you have someone saying you should do this to de-escalate the situation, but the
person that is actually watching the footage is not aware that there is another person
just at your left, that could also maybe some present present some issues for the
security of the police officer.
Yeah, that's that gets back to the original idea of body cameras and the study studies
of them that the camera records the objective reality.
But of course, what the officer sees might not be the same kind of recording.
I've written about that and I'm not going to go off on that tangent.
But again, the peripheral vision, the situational awareness of an officer that, you know,
looking left and right where the body camera is not doing that.
And there's I know we're not going to get into that, but there have been research studies
on what does the person see?
And, you know, when they when there's sound to the camera, when there's no sound to the
camera, there's a there's a vast amount of research in that area that just covers so
many different things that you're right.
This is just one small part of it.
And even look, what we're exposing is the complexity of dealing with, you know, this
particular situation with body cameras.
Now, and I wanted to talk about discretion.
Now, in your study, did officers have any opinions of of what a policy calls for versus
what they may feel is best during a particular call for service?
I'm the one there. I'm seeing the 365 degrees as I'm turning my head.
The body camera is not.
And the policy might say, OK, you should turn the camera off or you should leave it on
whatever it might be. But then the officer, it's like anything else, writing a ticket,
making an arrest, dealing with the domestic violence call.
I'm here. I'm living it.
I'm dealing with it in a good faith approach.
I think my my decision making should be different than the policy.
Did they say anything about I want to continue to use my discretion?
Did that bother bother them?
I think one of the main findings that we found about the discretion of police officers is
that officers did not fully agree with the policy that govern their camera activation.
Where was mandatory?
Some officers really felt mostly, I would say, constrained and experienced situation
where they would have liked to stop the recording and at the opposite, where it was
optional officers experience difficulties in activating the camera at the right moment.
So some of them said, well, I was kind of using a forced scenario and it was really
hard for me to activate the cameras.
So really have we really have those two situation.
And the other would also explain that it was really hard for them to engage with people.
So they would have liked to turn off the cameras and some of them actually turn it off.
So even though it was mandatory, we we saw that some police officers, I would say they
loved strategies to turn around and navigate through the policy that was in place.
So they had, I would say, some strategies to cover the cameras so they didn't turn it
off to just cover it in such moment.
And other really fun way to activate it, even though it was not the initial intervention,
the way to turn around this scenario.
So, so essentially these were all good faith approaches to dealing with the situation.
I think so.
Like, I don't think from what I've read in the transcripts of the interviews, I don't
think people were really trying to cover up any issues in their intervention, but we're
mostly focused about I don't think this is the right time to turn on the cameras.
It's not nice for the people that are experienced some issues at the moment.
We also find others that how could I say that?
Yeah, it's just they knew they should have some form of record, but at the moment they
felt that it shouldn't be turned on.
So they find a way to just justify that why didn't turn on and they didn't experience
any issue later on with their organization.
So most of them say, well, if I didn't turn on, nobody like got back to me saying you
should have turned it on in this situation.
So there's always like an explainable justification for why did it was not turn on at
the moment.
OK, so after completing your research, whatever else you might have done revolving around
this, what are some of the give us two or three implications for police practice, police
personnel or even police leaders when they're developing a policy?
I think unfortunately, we don't have any specific like implication for people or that
they should do in their practices.
But I think one of the things that is really important is to remember police officers to
be cautious about the belief that the technology can resolve anything or any problems.
So we've experienced people saying in those situations might help, but in other
situation, we really experience drawbacks.
And it was just it was not just about their opinions that they could experience drawbacks,
some actually felt the negative impacts that it could have on their intervention.
So I think there's always this issue with technology that is it is presented as a
solution for anything.
But maybe we still have to rely on the people's judgments in the situation and not
believe that the technology can really solve it all.
And I think the other implication that might be useful is that for police leaders that
are actually thinking about how should I deploy a policy about the activation of
body worn cameras is to just remember that there are a lot of factors that are involved
into the situation.
So it could have positive impact.
It could have a negative impact.
There is also the unpredictability of the behavior of the people that are involved in
those situations that are experienced crisis.
So even though we're not able to suggest a total ban on filming those incidents, nor
an obligation to do so, I think the police police leaders need to think their activation
policy with regard also to the discretion of police officers to decide what to do in
a specific setting.
So really have policies that consider both their perspective or aims as police managers,
but also the ability of the street level officers to create their own practices and to
choose the better option in a specific scenario.
So I think this might also be a good implication for our research.
OK, very good. OK, so in closing, is there anything else that we didn't cover that you
think is important from your research that the police should know about?
Well, I don't think so.
I think we've got from what we have what we have done in this research.
I think the next step is really to have, as we mentioned earlier, some better evidence
about the actual impact of those body worn cameras and those technologies on mental
health issues and mental health crisis.
We hope for the best that this could help police officers to do their job easier and
also in a more I would say safe way.
But there's still some research to do on those issues.
And I hope my colleagues and I and other researchers might be able to provide some of
those answers to these really important questions.
Excellent. Vince, I appreciate you coming on the podcast, talking to us about a very
important topic when it comes to body cameras and the decision to record under certain
circumstances. And again, this is the kind of topic that applies across the board when
it comes to there is no hard and fast rule when it comes to what officers are dealing
with, what's the best option.
And so there needs to be a variety of decisions, hard decisions on the part of
administrators to to say, OK, this is what we're going to do.
This is when we're going to allow at least some amount of discretion.
And, you know, there also might be an issue of I know these these are public documents
more or less, but there might be a time where the police say, look, we're not going to
release this. This is almost something they would redact from a document.
The OK, this is an issue that we're going to redact this this video.
And I don't know if that's come up with policing policies in the past.
I don't know. I think for a moment, most people didn't look at the policies, really.
Researchers were mainly focused on, do they have any impact on the actual behavior of
people? But I think the next step should be to look at the policies and to have better
knowledge about what should police managers do to really have the best way to implement
the use of police, body wearing cameras, stories in those situations and to see if
there is any specific settings where, as you mentioned, need some specific treatment
on those data and those footage that are available.
All right. Thanks again, Vince. I appreciate you coming on the podcast.
Thanks for the invite. You have a great day.
You too. That's it for this episode of the Police in Service Training Podcast.
I want to thank you, the listener, for spending your valuable time here.
If you like what you've heard, please tell a friend to subscribe on Apple Podcasts or
wherever they get their podcasts.
And please take a moment to review this podcast.
If you have any questions or comments, positive or negative, or if you think I should
cover a specific topic, feel free to send me an email, which you can find in the show
notes or you can find me on Blue Sky using the handle at policeinservice.bsky.social.
Thanks very much and have a great day.