Police Officers’ Perceptions of Body-Worn Video Cameras in Beijing

Abstract

The Chinese police started using body-worn video cameras (BWVCs) from 2010 in some cities and provinces. On July 1, 2016, shortly after the death of Lei Yang during arrest by police, the Ministry of Public Security (Gong’anbu) introduced BWVCs as mandatory for all the Chinese frontline police officers through issuing Regulations on Audio and Video Recording of Onsite Law Enforcement for Public Security Units (RAVR). However, despite the nationwide use of BWVCs, the research literature on BWVCs in China remains sparse. Studies from the United States and the United Kingdom provide evidence of the importance of officers’ buy-in to the new technology. It is, therefore, essential to know Chinese officers’ views and evaluations of using BWVCs. Using an anonymized online questionnaire, adapted from published international prior studies, this article reports and evaluates the views of 255 Beijing officers of the Beijing Police Department. Our analysis suggests that, overall, there was a high level of support and a high level of self-reported use for BWVCs among respondents not only because they are required to use them but also because they wanted to. Officers perceived more benefits than disadvantages of using BWVCs and most thought BWVCs would help them in their daily work without reducing their enthusiasm for law enforcement. Some differences were found between officers from different working units and between male and female officers. There were also weak negative correlations between length of service as a police officer and supportive attitudes toward BWVCs. Most criticisms were about technical issues such as higher expectations on the battery life and BWVC reliability.

Keywords

China Beijing body-worn video cameras police attitudes

This article first provides the background context to the mandatory introduction and use of body-worn video cameras (BWVCs) in China generally and then specifically to the Beijing Police Department. It then summarizes the research findings from the key international studies that were used to formulate the questionnaire for this Chinese project before moving on to cover how these were used in constructing the Beijing officer questionnaire. Next, it outlines how the respondents were recruited before summarizing the results of descriptive analysis of officers’ general perceptions and attitudes to BWVCs in relation to gender, work units, and officers’ length of service. This article concludes with a discussion of the implications of the key findings along with the limitations to the study and the associated identification of future research requirements for Chinese police use of BWVCs.

Background Context to the Introduction of BWVCs in China

Although internal policy developments had ensured that BWVCs had been in use from 2010 onward in some Chinese police departments (S. Li & Huang, 2010), a catalyst event on May 7, 2016, resulted in the rapid and mandatory requirement for all Chinese frontline officers to use BWVCs. A 29-year-old man, Lei Yang (雷洋), died unexpectedly during his arrest for suspected soliciting of prostitution in a massage parlor in the Changping District in northwest Beijing (Fei, 2016). Lei Yang had a master’s degree, was a new father, and worked for a government-linked environmental organization (Wen, 2016). The arresting officers described Lei as violently uncooperative. They restrained him, and he was loaded into a police vehicle. He collapsed inside and was taken to the nearest hospital at 22:15 but was declared dead at 22:55 (Wen, 2016).

Lei’s death sparked huge controversy in Chinese society. An angry public demanded to see video footage, but the police responded that no closed circuit television or BWVC was used at the scene. One officer had attempted to record with a mobile phone instead, but this reportedly fell to the ground and captured nothing (Huang & Horwitz, 2017). Lei’s incident fueled public disquiet about suspected excessive use of force by police officers, building on an earlier high-profile case in 2014 (the Qing’an shooting), in which a railway police officer shot a 45-year-old man and argued that his issued BWVC was broken and sent for repair on the eve of the case (CNTV News, 2015; Hu, 2015).

In June 2016, 54 days after the Lei Yang incident, the Ministry of Public Security (Gong’anbu) introduced the Regulations on Audio and Video Recording of Onsite Law Enforcement for Public Security Units (RAVR)¹ that resulted in a mandatory requirement for all Chinese frontline officers to use BWVCs (Gong’anbu, 2016).

There are parallels here with similar situations in the United States. In 2014, after Michael Brown, an unarmed Black teenager, was killed by the police, President Obama funded the nationwide adoption of BWVC and associated training (Dann & Rafferty, 2014). However, while it is down to individual police departments in the United States to decide whether to equip their officers with BWVCs, through Gong’anbu/RAVR, BWVC use was made mandatory immediately throughout China for frontline officers with the aims of improving police behavior (echoing the United States’ general emphasis for BWVCs; see Ellis et al., 2015) and public confidence. Further, RAVR stipulate that “all law enforcement activities must be recorded with BWVCs.”

Both Chinese high-profile cases shared the fact that BWVCs were claimed to be either broken or absent during the police encounter. Some argued that these were simply poor excuses to avoid accountability and that the police officers involved had used BWVCs selectively (Cui, 2016).

These criticisms, and perceived public opinion, provoked questions that had previously never been discussed or even taken seriously: what was the police attitude to the use of BWVCs and were police officers using BWVCs willingly? Neither officers nor their departments are likely to openly deny or challenge the mandated policy introduced by Gong’anbu, which is the highest central power over the police in China.

It is also important to note that, even before the introduction of RAVR, no official or academic research had been released on how many officers were actually using BWVCs for law enforcement, how many of them were in favor of it, and so on. As such, perception issues remained an unanswered question.

Many studies from outside China have pointed to the importance of buy-in to BWVCs by police officers (Gaub et al., 2016; Jennings et al., 2014; Kyle & White, 2016). The effect of body-worn cameras ultimately depends on whether the cops like to use them (Gaub et al., 2016; Gramaglia & Phillips, 2017). The benefit of technology will not be realized if officers resist BWVCs because they perceive them to be detrimental to their well-being (Young & Ready, 2015).

If this is the case in a police force, department, station, and so on, the intended aims of introducing BWVCs will not be successful, and they would probably end up in failure with various excuses, no matter how strict the official regulations are. Therefore, some departments in the United States and United Kingdom tested the perceptions of officers before they decided on large-scale adoptions and/or also once the cameras are in operation (Goetschel & Peha, 2017; Jennings et al., 2014). However, in China, the nationwide introduction of RAVR, effectively an administrative command rather than a testing of police-user consensus, precluded the possibility of canvassing officers’ opinions and voices on BWVCs prior to their introduction. This article therefore examines the perceptions of Chinese police officers on their mandatory use of BWVCs and the extent to which these indicate the level of buy-in to the new technology.

Literature Review

There is a growing body of international literature, most of it in English, on BWVCs. The results of the early Plymouth (see Home Office, 2007) and Aberdeen (Fyfe, 2011) pilots by police in the United Kingdom were encouraging but small in scale, and they did not result in continued use once the pilot period ended. It was not until BWVCs were issued to every Isle of Wight (a division of Hampshire Constabulary, England) police officer in July 2013 (see Ellis et al., 2015), and the subsequent adoption of development of BWVC evaluations by the College of Policing after this, that BWVC use became common. In the United States, adoption of BWVCs was expedited by the then President Barak Obama after the Brown shooting (Crow et al., 2017). Of the many empirical studies conducted in these two countries since, the perceptions of citizens, command staff, and police officers drew the attention of Chinese researchers.

Most studies found that the majority of citizen respondents had positive attitudes about BWVCs, including during encounters with the police who were using them (Crow et al., 2017; White et al., 2017). Indeed, citizens’ perceptions of police performance and police interaction were found to be influential factors in the perceived benefits of BWVCs using structural equation modeling (Crow et al., 2017). Studies of command staff also indicated that most of them supported BWVCs’ introduction (Pelfrey & Keener, 2016; Smykla et al., 2016). However, command officers did have some reservations about the impact of BWVCs and, for example, whether officers would be reluctant to use necessary force if being recorded (Smykla et al., 2016).

Unsurprisingly, most BWVC perception studies are focused on the stakeholders, namely, police officers (Goetschel & Peha, 2017; Jennings et al., 2014), which is the focus of our study in China. We therefore reviewed the key studies as covered below (see Table 1).

Table 1.

Evaluation of Major Studies on Perception of Officers on BWVCs.

Authors	Participants	Research Method	Study Structure	Important Findings
Katz et al. (2014)	Between 100 and 110 patrol officers from Phoenix (AZ) Police Department	Pre–post comparison between target and comparison groups	33 questions clustered into eight subjects: accuracy and speed completing incident reports, use as evidence, reactions of the public to the body-worn cameras, police–community relations, police officer behavior, comfort and ease of use, general perceptions of body-worn cameras, and overall opinions of the value and expansion of BWVCs.	1. Officers tend to agree that the camera is easy to use and comfortable to wear and that its battery life is adequate but not that it is easy to locate and retrieve a video and download data 2. BWVC provides a more accurate account of an incident (58.8%) and improves the quality of evidence. Officers became less likely to agree that BWVCs will help enhance evidence for court after BWVCs were implemented 3. Officers became less positive about impact on citizens but more positive about impact on the department and officers 4. The majority of officers are generally dissatisfied with the fact that they wear BWVCs, but the support increased a little over the course
Jennings et al. (2014)	95 patrol officers from Orlando (FL) Police Department	Online questionnaire	A questionnaire of 15 questions testing general perceptions and perceived effects on citizen behavior, personal behavior, and fellow officers	1. Officers are generally open and supportive of BWVCs 2. They feel comfortable wearing them 3. They hold that BWVCs are beneficial in relevant outcomes
Ellis et al. (2015)	135 officers from Isle of Wight Police	Online survey (comparing police and public; frontline and nonfrontline officers)	Questions concerning the impact of BWVCs and whether using BWVCs should be personal or compulsory	1. The confidence in BWVCs is generally high with little variation between frontline officers, nonfrontline officers, and the public 2. Nonfrontline officers show significantly lower evaluation for deployment of personal issue BWVCs 3. The vast majority agree with that all officers should wear BWVCs and it should be compulsory 4. Nonfrontline officers were significantly less likely to agree that all uniformed police officers should use BWVCs and it should be compulsory
Gaub et al. (2016)	388 (predeployment) and 348 (postdeployment) officers from Phoenix (AZ), Spokane (WA), and Tempe (AZ) U.S. Police Departments	Randomized controlled trial of before and after deployment of BWVCs. Notably, this study uses the same data with Katz et al. (2014) while combining two other agencies	33 questions covering seven aspects: completing incident reports; use of evidence in court; citizen/resident reactions; police officer behavior; familiarity, comfort, and ease of use, general perceptions; and overall recommendations	1. The Phoenix officers showed less support for BWVCs than officers in Tempe (AZ, who were most positive) or in Spokane (WA, who had moderate levels of approval) both before and after the trial 2. Three departments all reported improved perceptions on the ease of use and comfort of BWVCs, and they became more skeptical about the impact on citizens 3. Tempe, AZ, and Spokane, WA, officers recognize the positive effects better after deployment but Phoenix (AZ) did not
Goetschel and Peha (2017)	179 officers from Pittsburg Bureau of Police, both with and without BWVC experience	Surveys and interviews	Focusing on overall assessment, police-/citizen-related benefits and comfort and ease of use	1. Officers believed that BWVCs would help reduce citizen complaints and maintain police–community relations but showed low support for deploying them 2. Support dramatically increases among officers with hands-on BWVC experience 3. Officers who oppose citywide BWVC adoption tended to believe that BWVCs would erode trust between officers and their superiors 4. Neither age nor policing experience significantly affected officers’ perceptions toward BWVCs
Gramaglia and Phillips, 2017	258 officers from Buffalo and Rochester police departments	Email survey	Following Katz’s questionnaire with special care on opinions about examining camera images prior to writing a report	1. Similar attitudes on many topics, like ease of use and distraction of work, were found not only among Buffalo and Rochester police officers but also with police officers in other agencies 2. Almost all respondents agree or strongly agree that police officers should have the ability to review body camera images prior to writing a report

Note. BWVC = body-worn video camera.

The findings of above studies are mixed. Most (62.7%) officers in Orlando supported use of BWVCs (Jennings et al., 2014). Phoenix officers had negative perceptions of BWVCs, while Tempe officers had largely positive perceptions and Spokane officers lay in between. Tempe and Spokane officers recognized the positive effects of BWVCs better after deployment, but Phoenix officers did not show this change (Gaub et al., 2016). The support rate for deploying BWVCs throughout Pittsburg was low (31%), but it significantly increased among officers with hands-on BWVC experience (57%; Goetschel & Peha, 2017).

Arguments on the benefits of the use of BWVCs are mainly about transparency, improved behaviors of both officers and citizens, reducing conflict, and dealing with complaints against officers (Katz et al., 2014; White, 2014). There have been differences though between studies. Only 20% of Orlando officers felt their behavior would be “improved” (Jennings et al., 2014), while Gaub et al. (2016) found that 45.9%, 37.9%, and 68.4% officers in three jurisdictions, respectively, felt they would “act more professional” when using a body camera. Further, while one study (Uchida, Soloman, Connor, & Shutinya, 2016, cited in Gramaglia & Phillips, 2017) reported that approximately two thirds of their respondents believed that BWVCs would be a distraction from their policing tasks, Gramaglia and Phillips (2017) found the equivalent rate in their study was only 48%.

However, there are also similar findings across previous studies. The perceptions of the ease of use and comfort of BWVCs were often improved after deploying or having experience (Goetschel & Peha, 2017; Gramaglia & Phillips, 2017; Jennings et al., 2014). In addition, officers usually did not think citizens would be more cooperative (Gramaglia & Phillips, 2017; Jennings et al., 2014). Potential drawbacks that officers perceived include invasion of privacy, reducing safety, distracting work, extra stress, trouble in data uploading, reluctance in using necessary force, and less discretion (Ariel et al., 2018; Gaub et al., 2016; Gramaglia & Phillips, 2017; Sandhu, 2017; Smykla et al., 2016; White et al., 2017).

In sum, the previous literature establishes that attitudes of officers toward innovations in technology in the form of BWVCs will differ with location, history and population (Gramaglia & Phillips, 2017); time, that is, before or after deployment of BWVCs; gender; age; race; length of service; and work units (Ellis et al., 2015; Gaub et al., 2016; Goetschel & Peha, 2017; Jennings et al., 2014; Katz et al., 2014). However, while the reviewed studies were necessarily helpful in framing the BWVC research approach in China, it was also clear that we would need to adapt our approach to the very different legal and cultural context of China.

While this is the first research study on police BWVCs in China, some Chinese researchers have commented and debated their relative benefits in helping officers with collecting evidence, dispute settling, and law enforcement standardization (Cao & Wu, 2013; Kong, 2014). Liu (2013) has also argued that any negative perceptions by officers toward BWVC adoption indicates their poor understanding of BWVCs’ value in ensuring better quality policing and that these attitudes need to be addressed clearly.

There have also been some technical/feasibility studies on camera performance in China. These are limited to important elements that may affect officer confidence and attitudes to BWVCs, that is, low battery capacity, low memory storage, inconvenience in wearing and use, complexity in capturing and retrieving footage/clips, and low definition output (Kong, 2014). While these studies add to our understanding of technical elements that may affect officers’ attitudes to BWVCs in China, their limited scope and methodology do not provide more than a stepping-stone for a more in-depth approach to assessing officers’ attitudes.

This article, therefore, provides the first systematic research on Chinese police officers’ use of BWVCs and more specifically on their perceptions of BWVCs. We have based our approach on the review of U.S. studies above but have also adapted it to the specific Chinese context. First, we assess the extent of officer support for BWVCs and account for whether these are affected by hands-on experience. We also explore differences between officers based on their demographic and work detail differences. Finally, we compare our finding to those of the U.S. studies we reviewed and offer explanations for this.

Methodology

Interviews and Questionnaire

Overall, this study is based on the development of a questionnaire that was mostly influenced by the prior U.S. work of Gaub et al. (2016) and Jennings et al. (2014). We borrowed and adapted from them to produce our framework for Chinese police officers. In particular, modifications in phraseology were required to fit the Chinese context.² We also added some items. For example, we designed a self-report question so we could get information on the use rate for BWVCs. On the other hand, we included only three demographic variables that we deemed most important, that is, gender, work unit, and length (years) of service in the police. Classifications regarding race/ethnicity are not so well developed for criminal justice research in China (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2011).

While these modifications were important, we were aware that they were not, in themselves, enough to fully adapt the questionnaire to the Chinese context. We therefore used a sequential design (Robson & McCartan, 2016) which involved using the themes from the literature review and our above adaptations to use in preliminary semistructured interviews with a small convenience sample of eight frontline officers from the police department under study. The themes/questions explored were as follows:

What do you think of BWVCs?

Are you supportive, or not, of BWVCs and why?

Have BWVCs impacted on your work (and how/why not)?

Do you think anything needs to be changed in the use of BWVCs (and what/why not)?

The interview data were then coded and analyzed. The semistructured interviews largely produced a range of responses and themes within the framework of previous studies carried out outside China. However, some new issues specific to the Chinese context were also discovered. In particular, the practice of “deliberately intermittent recording” and selective use of BWVC recording were discussed. Many of the interviewees also expressed a relatively high level of dissatisfaction about the quality of the current BWVCs that was stronger than represented in the reviewed English-language literature.

In the final sequence, based on the previous literature and the semistructured interviews, we then extracted the keywords from the most common themes and developed these into a total of twenty-six 5-point Likert-type scale statements in five domains: overall concept, perceived benefits, perceived drawbacks, field experience, and feeling about equipment quality. This structured questionnaire was then used to measure officers’ attitudes and preferences ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.”

Sampling and Participants

The target participants in this study were police officers from two contiguous sub-bureaux of Beijing Police Department located in the southwest of Beijing city. We chose these two bureaux partly because they had equipped their frontline officers with BWVCs (also referred to as “Eagle Eyes,” and other names depending on the body cameras used) since 2010 along with all other Beijing Police Departments’ local policy (S. Li & Huang, 2010). This real-world choice was also effectively dictated by the supportive collaboration of the chief commanders of these the branches of the two sub-bureaux and the lack of any comparable study to date.

For both interviews and questionnaires, it was only feasible to effect a convenience sample. It is, therefore, not possible to confirm distribution and response rates and so on. Indeed, there are limitations on Chinese statistics for police establishments. They are effectively “classified” and are not published. This is obviously quite different to the challenges in the United States and the United Kingdom, from where we derived our approach, but it does represent the police research reality in China, which should perhaps be of interest as a comparative finding in itself.

Obviously, the local BWVR policy requirements to use BWVCs in all cases have not been fully executed as can be inferred from the Lei Yang case. Since RAVR were implemented, however, there are now provisions to enforce greater accountability and therefore more effective supervision and oversight of frontline officers’ behavior. Our interviewees were clear on the new provisions for being disciplined for being on duty without wearing a BWVC and that they might also receive warnings from the supervisors.

Despite official sanctioning of our study, there were a number of conditions required in order to gain access. While the research process does not provide for, or require, explicit informed consent in the same manner of the typical Western research environment, there are equivalent procedures. Central to this is ensuring strict anonymity of the police respondents. Further, anonymity of sub-bureaux is also a condition that, as noted, unfortunately limits the scope of our analysis at this level.

Another limitation is that it was not possible to establish an accurate number for the total sample population in the sub-bureaux, partly due to personnel flow, but mainly due to confidentiality requirements. We can, therefore, only estimate a response rate of 15% based on the information provided jointly by the sub-bureaux commanders. Our sample shows that of the 255 valid responses we received, the characteristics were 160 police patrol officers (62.7%), 25 supervisory officers (9.8%), 21 traffic police officers (8.2%), 22 SWAT Patrol (8.6%), 13 auxiliary and intern police (5.1%), and 14 from other roles (5.5%). Only 25 (9.8%) of the respondents were women. The average time in police service was 8.7 (± 8.3) years.

The link to the online questionnaire was sent to the chief commanders who distributed it through the police internal network community.³ The data were collected from December 2016 to February 2017, resulting in 255 valid, returned questionnaires.

Analysis

The data were processed in SPSS Version 22.0. We analyzed the data in three steps. First, we made a description of officers’ perceptions with statistics of average score (M) and standard deviation (SD), which were presented in the form of a clustered column diagram consistent with previous studies (see Jennings et al., 2014; Smykla et al., 2016). We then used analysis of variance to examine differences in views on BWVCs by work allocation role and by gender. Finally, we conducted Pearson correlation coefficient analysis for the number of years in police service and perceptions of BWVCs.

Results

We analyzed the five domains outlined above in turn.

Utilization Rate for BWVCs

The own-use utilization rate of BWVCs by respondents was very high. Figure 1 shows that the vast majority (93%) of officers chose “frequent use” or above. Only 1% of respondents reported that they never used BWVCs.

Figure 1.

Body-worn video camera utilization rate.

General Views on BWVCs

Officers’ ratings on the general value of BWVCs were examined with 3 items (see Figure 2). The distribution of these three issues appears to be much the same; 83.98% officers agreed (or strongly agreed) that BWVCs have more advantages than disadvantages (M = 4.06, SD = 0.72). Meanwhile, 80.86% officers agreed or strongly agreed that “even if it is not mandatory, I will still use the BWVC” (M = 4.00, SD = 0.75), and 79.69% officers supported that “all field law enforcement encounters should be recorded” (M = 4.00, SD = 0.87).

Figure 2.

Officers’ general views on value of body-worn video cameras.

Perceived Benefits of BWVCs

Police officers’ perceptions of the benefits in using BWVCs included 7 items (see Table 2). Table 2 shows that 84.3% of the respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the BWVCs “regulate my enforcement performance” (M = 4.09, SD = 0.68), and 84.0% agreed or strongly agreed that BWVCs “can effectively deal with malicious complaints” (M = 4.13, SD = 0.85); 79.3% officers “feel safer in law enforcement” (M = 4.25, SD = 0.84). About half (54.30%) of officers thought the BWVC “enhanced the credibility of police law enforcement” (M = 3.45, SD = 1.03) or “improved work efficiency” (52.74%, M = 3.54, SD = 0.95). Agreement on whether BWVCs would “reduce citizen complaints,” however, was low (44.53%, M = 3.35, SD = 1.05), especially when compared to earlier studies in the United Kingdom, for example, Ellis et al. (2015) found an equivalent figure of 95%. Further, only 26.17% officers believed that “suspects would be more cooperative” (M = 2.91, SD = 1.06), while the equivalent results in the United States were higher, for example, 35% in Spokane and 57% in Tempe (Gaub et al., 2016). As Table 2 summarizes, officers’ views on the perceived benefits of BWVCs show they have more confidence in the self-oriented benefits rather than the citizen-oriented benefits.

Table 2.

Officers’ Views on Perceived Benefits of Body-Worn Video Cameras.

Items	% Strongly Disagree/Disagree	% Neutral	% Strongly Agree/Agree	Mean Score	SD
Regulate my law enforcement performance	1.56	14.06	84.37	4.09	0.68
Effectively deal with malicious complaints	5.47	10.55	83.99	4.13	0.85
I feel safer	1.95	18.75	79.3	4.25	0.84
Enhanced the credibility of police law enforcement	16.41	29.3	54.3	3.45	1.03
Improve work efficiency	12.89	34.38	52.74	3.54	0.95
Reduce citizen complaints	17.58	37.89	44.53	3.35	1.05
The suspects would be more cooperative	29.3	44.53	26.17	2.91	1.06

Perceived Drawbacks

The mean scores for the five “drawback” statements on BWVCs are weakly positive (see Table 3). While the largest single category of responses for all five statements was to disagree with the drawbacks, only disagreement with negative statements about “violating other citizens’ privacy” (55.08%) and “increasing my fear of law enforcement” (54.69%) managed to produce a slim majority. This was largely due to the high proportion of neutral responses (28.28–40.63%) which were always higher than the combined, relatively meager, strongly agree/agree responses (12.89– 28.13%).

Table 3.

Officers’ Views on Perceived Drawbacks of Body-Worn Video Cameras.

Items	% Strongly Disagree/Disagree	% Neutral	% Strongly Agree/Agree	Mean Score	SD
Violate other citizens’ privacy	55.08	32.03	12.89	2.47	0.92
Increase my fear of law enforcement	54.69	29.69	15.63	2.55	0.98
Reduce necessary use of weapon and other apparatus	42.97	28.91	28.13	2.87	1.14
Alienate the public	41.4	40.63	17.97	2.71	0.93
Violate personal privacy	38.67	28.28	23.05	2.87	0.99

While this is encouraging, there is a need to explain the high neutral proportions of the responses. Since previous studies on officers either did not set a neutral option (Gaub et al., 2016; Gramaglia & Phillips, 2017) or did not have drawback options (Jennings et al., 2014), we chose Smykla et al.’s (2016) approach on police leadership. In their study, the neutral rating for BWVCs varied greatly on different items, that is, “be a distraction” about 9%, “invasion of police officers’ privacy” about 11%, “invasion of citizens’ privacy” about 16%, and “make it harder to get citizens to talk” about 29%. So, the high proportion of neutral responses in our study is not unique to the Chinese policing context. One possible explanation for this issue was provided by an officer we interviewed, who thought that the listed drawbacks might be potentially valid but had not yet been experienced. The answers might therefore be hypothetical and may explain the variation in the neutral category.

Experience in the Field

Table 4 shows the law enforcement experience of our police respondents. Encouragingly, the vast majority (95.7%) of the respondents believed that they would speak and behave more cautiously when using BWVCs (M = 4.45, SD = 0.61), but 54.69% also agreed that they felt stressed through the process (M = 3.45, SD = 1.13). This indicates that using BWVCs puts an extra pressure on officers. Since governmental requirements and social expectation have already put great pressure on Chinese police officers to conduct themselves properly and maintain a positive image in the eye of the public (Jiao, 2001), our results suggest that BWVCs are likely to be effective in improving officer behavior through awareness of recorded evidence.

Table 4.

Experience in the Field.

Items	% Strongly Disagree/Disagree	% Neutral	% Strongly Agree/Agree	Mean Score	SD
I deliberately ceased recording	48.83	22.66	28.51	2.73	1.15
I feel stressful	21.88	23.44	54.69	3.45	1.13
Distracting me from actions	21.09	29.3	49.61	3.40	0.98
Troublesome and time-consuming	14.45	15.63	69.92	3.84	1.04
Affecting my movements (running etc.)	10.55	25.39	64.06	3.77	0.95
I would behave more cautiously	0.78	3.52	95.7	4.45	0.61

However, it will be important to address the additional stress that this causes. Despite the high level of officer support for BWVCs, more negative reactions were also recorded, for instance, 28.51% of our sample admitted that they had deliberately used the cameras intermittently when recording (M = 2.73, SD = 1.15). Some of this could possibly be explained through legitimate discretion, but it is still not in line with RAVR. Further, 69.92% (M = 3.84, SD = 1.04) of officers thought that the use of BWVCs was “troublesome and time-consuming,” and 64.06% (M = 3.77, SD = 0.95) responded that the cameras affected their physical performance. Finally, almost half (49.61%, M = 3.40, SD = 0.98) of the officers in our study thought BWVCs were “distracting.”

Views on Equipment Quality

The officers’ views on the quality of BWVCs are shown in Table 5. As can be seen, most agreed BWVCs were “easy to operate” (73.44%, M = 3.71, SD = 0.94). This is a higher proportion than found in the studies in Tempe (post deployment, 63.9%), Spokane (post deployment, 54.4%), and Phoenix (post deployment, 53.8%; Gaub et al., 2016). The lowest level of agreement, on the other hand, was for whether BWVCs are “steady and not easy to drop” (34.77%). Indeed, this was noted in the Lei Yang case, where it was reported that BWVCs “fell off.” Other aspects including battery life (M = 3.09, SD = 1.23), failure rate (M = 3.06, SD = 1.06), and angle and definition (M = 3.12, SD = 1.09) all emerged with a neutral score close to 3 on the 5-point scale, indicating an uncertain attitude to camera quality and usability. The implications here are that a more thorough review of camera usability and performance will be required in further studies.

Table 5.

Views on Equipment Quality.

Items	% Strongly Disagree/Disagree	% Neutral	% Strongly Agree/Agree	Mean Score	SD
Steady and not easy to drop	34.77	25.77	39.46	3.04	1.16
Good battery life	33.98	23.44	42.58	3.09	1.23
Low failure rate	28.91	33.98	37.11	3.06	1.06
Good angle and definition	28.51	31.25	40.23	3.12	1.09
Easy to operate	12.89	13.67	73.44	3.71	0.94

Group Comparisons and Correlation Analysis

Having established the respondents’ general attitudes and views of BWVCs, we then analyzed their responses to ascertain whether the type of police units, gender, and length of service made any significant differences.

The results of mean comparisons between police units, gender, and length of service are presented in Table 6. The figures here show that there were few differences, but we have highlighted those that were significant in bold. The significant differences (p < .05) between units here were for whether “BWVCs have a good battery life” and “all field law enforcement encounters should be recorded.” For both items, the traffic police and officers from district-level units ranked these factors the lowest, while auxiliary police and intern police ranked them highest.

Table 6.

Comparison of Units, Genders, and Correlation Analysis.

	Police Station	District Level	Traffic Police	SWAT Patrol	Auxiliary and Intern	Others	Male	Female	Years of Law Enforcement
Items	Mean	Mean	Mean	Mean	Mean	Mean	Mean	Mean	r
Overall concept
Advantages outweigh disadvantages	4.08	3.76	4.19	3.86	4.46	4.07	4.05	4.16	−.255**
Even if not mandatory, I will still use the BWVC	4.04	3.64	4.14	3.91	4.31	3.86	4.01	3.92	−.167**
All field law enforcement should be recorded	4.09	3.36	3.90	4.05	4.15	4.00	4.01	3.92	−.106
Perceived benefits
I feel safer	4.27	3.92	4.43	4.05	4.62	4.36	4.22	4.56	−.171**
Reduce citizen complaints	3.36	3.40	3.14	3.27	3.69	3.29	3.32	3.68	−.192**
Effectively deal with malicious complaints	4.13	3.96	4.05	4.18	4.38	4.21	4.09	4.48	−.153*
Improve work efficiency	3.53	3.12	3.48	3.86	3.92	3.57	3.51	3.76	−.157*
Regulate my law enforcement performance	4.09	3.96	4.24	4.05	4.15	4.00	4.08	4.16	−.252**
The suspects would be more cooperative	2.91	2.44	3.19	2.95	3.15	2.93	2.86	3.32	−.161**
Enhanced the credibility of police law enforcement	3.40	3.16	3.86	3.50	3.92	3.43	3.40	3.88	−.214**
Perceived drawbacks
Violation of my privacy	2.81	3.16	3.00	2.91	2.85	2.79	2.87	2.88	.043
Violation of citizens’ privacy	2.43	2.52	2.43	2.59	2.77	2.50	2.46	2.64	−.038
Make me fear of law enforcement	2.52	2.64	2.43	2.68	2.85	2.50	2.52	2.84	−.034
Alienate from the mass	2.73	2.84	2.57	2.73	2.92	2.29	2.72	2.64	.117
Reduce the necessary use of force	2.91	2.64	2.90	3.00	3.08	2.50	2.85	3.08	.083
Experience in the field
Troublesome and time-consuming	3.77	4.08	4.29	3.91	3.92	3.36	3.87	3.60	.048
Affect my movements (running, etc.)	3.78	4.00	3.81	3.73	3.31	3.64	3.81	3.40	.063
Distracting me from actions	3.34	3.88	3.33	3.64	3.08	3.21	3.42	3.24	.115
I would speak and behave more cautiously	4.50	4.32	4.52	4.18	4.54	4.29	4.43	4.60	−.196**
I feel stressful	3.46	3.44	3.24	3.59	3.31	3.50	3.46	3.36	.027
I deliberately ceased recording	2.66	2.88	3.10	2.91	2.77	2.43	2.77	2.40	.047
Feelings of equipment quality
Good battery life	3.19	2.68	2.62	2.77	3.85	3.29	3.07	3.36	−.138*
Steady and not easy to drop	3.08	2.88	3.10	2.64	3.62	2.93	3.00	3.48	−.148*
Low failure rate	3.03	3.12	2.86	2.95	3.46	3.50	3.05	3.20	−.123
Easy to operate	3.71	3.28	4.00	3.68	4.00	3.86	3.69	3.88	−.165**
Good angle and definition	3.13	3.00	2.95	2.82	3.77	3.29	3.11	3.20	−.127*

Note. Significant difference (p < .05) is noted in boldface in comparison between units and genders. BWVC = body-worn video camera.

* Means a significant level of .05. **Means a significant level of .01.

Significant differences (p < .05) in the comparison of gender were also found. Female officers tended to believe that BWVCs were “steady and not easy to drop,” “effective in response to malicious complaints,” and could “enhance the credibility of law enforcement.” Male officers, on the other hand, were significantly more likely to agree that BWVCs were “distracting.”

The results of correlation analysis between length of service in law enforcement and perceptions of BWVCs are also presented in Table 6. Small though the coefficients were, many items were significantly correlated with number of years in law enforcement service (p < .01 or p < .05). It can be seen that longer service was significantly negatively correlated with attitudes on “general perceptions,” “perceived benefits,” “field experiences,” and “quality.” Length of service was also significantly positively correlated with higher levels of perceived drawbacks. There were no exceptions in these correlations, indicating a clear finding that Chinese police officers with longer service in the two sub-bureaux studied were less supportive of BWVCs and are more inclined to perceive problems with their quality or operation.

Discussion

The past decade has seen the rapid deployment of BWVCs around the world. China is no exception: This study found more than 90% of respondents reported that they used BWVCs frequently during law enforcement. While the Chinese officers are now using BWVCs under a very strict nationwide policy, with the main intent of improving accountability, there is minimal Chinese research and literature on the topic and especially on the perceptions of officers. It is, therefore, important to know how officers in China have responded to the biggest roll out of body cameras the world has seen. Driven by this curiosity, this article has examined police officers’ perception on BWVCs’ use.

We are aware of the limitations of this study, but this has to be balanced against the almost total absence of research and publications on BWVC use in China, and we feel we have established a base from which to build. In particular, negotiating agreement for access and ensuring cooperation in a potentially sensitive and contentious area can be considered a major achievement. Second, although the sample was restricted to two sub-bureaux, the response rate was, possibly, relatively low (affecting representativeness, gender proportion, etc.), and we were not able to pilot the questionnaire, we did carry out initial semistructured interviews to combine international and local factors. We did achieve 255 responses across all types of police duties, and we were able to produce a Cronbach’s α of .866 indicating a good level of validity so that the questionnaire can be further built upon. We are now also working on translating and adapting the technology acceptance model (TAM; see Ellis et al., 2015) standardized instrument for future research on Chinese policing.

This study does increase our understanding of police reactions to mandatory use of BWVCs and their use in practice outside of the current literature which is largely based on developed countries publishing in English. It also does manage to ensure a level of comparability with these studies by adapting their questionnaires within the Chinese policing context.

Overall, this study shows that officer “buy-in” to BWVC use is relatively high in Chinese policing at least in Beijing. Ninety-two percent of officers reported using BWVCs frequently or above, and only 1% respondents reported they never used them, while 18% of Pittsburg officers did not have hands-on experience of using BWVCs (Goetschel & Peha, 2017). Most (80.86%) of the officers in this survey would be willing to use BWVCs even if it were not mandatory.

It is important to note that 84% of the two sub-bureaux officers in our survey agreed that the advantages of BWVCs outweighed the disadvantages. This is mostly a much higher rate than the comparable studies from which our questionnaire was derived: Phoenix (post deployment, 14.0%); Spokane (post deployment, 55.3%); and Tempe (post deployment, 80.4%), although it is possible that this was skewed by the relatively low response rate. However, it is also important to note that while most Chinese officers surveyed supported recording every law enforcement encounter, 28.5% did admit to deliberate intermittent recording during some encounters. The reasons for this will be a fruitful avenue of future research.

The relatively high rate of acceptance of BWVCs among Chinese officers might be explained by utilitarian and/or rational choice approaches similar to Gaub et al. (2016); that is, officers have become familiar with use of BWVCs and experienced the benefit they brought about, and most police officers believe that the use of BWVCs could regulate their own behaviors, make them feel safer, deal more effectively with citizen complaints, enhance the credibility of law enforcement, and so on. The surveyed officers did not think the use of BWVCs would violate privacy, decrease the necessary use of weapons, or make the public more feel alienated. It therefore appears that BWVCs have been generally accepted by Beijing law enforcement officers, with the benefits brought to their daily work, and without reducing their enthusiasm of law enforcement, although they did indicate some additional stress related to BWVC introduction. As such, the use of BWVCs seems a rational choice for officers under the current Chinese social and occupational circumstances.

Consistent with the reviewed U.S. and UK studies, we found that our survey respondents did not see BWVCs as a panacea to all law enforcement problems. For example, many officers did not agree that the use of BWVCs would make suspects more cooperative, nor could it reduce the number of citizen complaints (see Ellis et al., 2015; Gaub et al., 2016; Gramaglia & Phillips, 2017).

It is also important to note that the approach taken here has identified that there are limits to this single-method approach that can be addressed in the future research. In our case, it was clear that drawbacks to privacy (both citizens’ and their own) were not fully recognized by officers as they were only referencing their own experience and usage. However, incidents of privacy invasion caused by BWVC data leakage have been reported frequently (Y. Li, 2015). It exposes the problems of footage access accompanied with, as yet, incomplete regulations, which currently pose a great challenge in Chinese policing.

Basic technological and quality issues in operating the BWVCs should also not be overlooked but tend not to be discussed in prior studies (Gaub et al., 2016), although Ellis et al. (2015) did include a human factors approach on this element. We found that officers expected a higher quality of BWVCs than they were currently provided with. Except for the item “simple to operate” (73.44%), all the aspects of qualities listed in the questionnaire were rated at lower than 50%, meaning that officers were hardly satisfied with them. We can therefore assume that the currently used models of BWVCs are not user-friendly enough. They cannot fully meet the actual needs and expectations of the officers in battery life, stability, storage space, lens angle, and other issues. In other words, the current quality of BWVCs might be an obstacle for the implementation, which should be overcome by technical improvement. We hope to use the Chinese version of TAM we have developed to address this problem for an evidence-based solution.

In this research, we were able to explore the perceptions of different officers by comparing among some subgroups (mostly by role designation). In common with Jennings et al. (2014), we found more similarities than differences between these groups, including officers’ gender. Only on particular issues, the traffic police and district-level police showed less support for BWVCs, while auxiliary and intern police officers showed more support. Since the traffic police are effectively frontline officers, our finding is inconsistent with the findings of the UK study in Hampshire, where frontline officers showed significantly more support on use of BWVCs (Ellis et al., 2015). This latter study also showed that investigating officers were less enthusiastic about BWVCs, while in China, the investigation role would be subsumed within a frontline officers’ general role, making comparisons difficult. The weak correlation between length of service and acceptance of BWVCs might be explained by greater openness to, and acceptance of, new technology among younger officers, but we will need to conduct a larger study, using the TAM instrument, to adequately develop analysis on this theme.

Other key areas for future research in Chinese policing were also identified in our study. We are not at a stage yet where we can make explicit comparisons between U.S., UK, and Chinese contexts. The differences in police organizational arrangements, as much as cultural factors, still need to be explored. However, a clearer exposition of what “use of force” entails in each of the countries seems to be a necessary comparative project along with notions of what constitutes “officer safety.”

Overall, the findings of this first study provide an important base from which to produce further research on BWVC use in China. There is a need to expand the research and evaluation evidence base along with establishing how a nationwide policy shapes the behavior and attitudes of individual officers, in combination with the exigencies of the job. Our findings suggest that Chinese police officers seem to be more accepting of BWVCs than U.S. and UK officers, but a larger research base needs to be established as a result of this study. Indeed, we are aware of the fact that this is a fast moving area of study, but we feel this Beijing-based study, and the larger research and evaluation projects that will follow it, will contribute valuable findings to the international corpus of evidence and knowledge on BWVCs’ effectiveness.

Footnotes

Acknowledgment

The authors are grateful to all the officers who participated this survey.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study is funded by the Ministerial-Level Programs of China Law Society of 2017(中国法学会2017年度部级法学研究课题) (CLS2017Y11).

ORCID iDs

Feng Jiang

Chuanyu Xie

Notes

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