Conventional wisdom about police culture has long been shaped by what people consume on their televisions. From “Cops” to “NYPD Blue” to “Law & Order” to “The Wire,” people have come to understand police culture as filtered through the lens of a camera. Yet, while we still have police dramas on the television, we no longer need Hollywood to provide us with a fictional lens. Today, we have two prevalent and powerful resources that provide real-world footage of police officers: cell phone cameras, which have been used with increasing frequency by individuals to capture police/citizen interactions, and the body-worn cameras (BWCs) provided by police departments to officers across the country.

Join Daniel Bromberg, nationally known BWC researcher at UNH’s Carsey School of Public Policy, and Étienne Charbonneau, Canada Research Chair in Comparative Public Management at École Nationale d'Administration Publique, as they examine the complex relationship between BWCs and policing and present recently collected data about citizen support and perceptions surrounding BWC practices.