In this article, we analyze scholarly publications on body-worn cameras (BWCs) to shed light on scholars’ grounding assumptions about BWC technology and the policing problems assumed to be amended by it. We conducted a systematic search and a double-blind review, including 90 peer-reviewed journal articles, and analyzed how scholars warrant their studies, their findings and their recommendations. We found that BWC research largely investigates the effectiveness of BWCs worn by police officers in the United States and build upon a set of dominant policing problem representations: the police crisis in the United States and the police use of force, lack of oversight and control of police officers, citizen dissatisfaction and lack of police legitimacy, and police officer resistance toward BWC use. Assumptions underlying all four problem representations is that BWC technology will amend these problems and is legitimate and useful if the public supports it. Taken together, this enhances the representation of BWC technology as a self-evident means of improving community relations and police legitimacy in the United States. Finally, we provide recommendations for future research on BWCs, particularly the need for research departing from altogether different problem representations.

在本文中，我们分析了有关随身相机 (BWC) 的学术出版物，以阐明学者对 BWC 技术的基本假设以及假设由它修正的警务问题。我们进行了系统搜索和双盲审查，包括 90 篇同行评审的期刊文章，并分析了学者如何保证他们的研究、他们的发现和他们的建议。我们发现 BWC 研究主要调查美国警察佩戴 BWC 的有效性，并建立在一系列主要的警务问题表征之上：美国的警察危机和警察使用武力、缺乏监督和控制警察、公民不满和缺乏警察合法性，以及警察对使用 BWC 的抵制。所有四个问题表述背后的假设是 BWC 技术将修正这些问题，并且如果公众支持它是合法和有用的。总之，这增强了 BWC 技术作为改善美国社区关系和警察合法性的不言而喻的手段的代表性。最后，我们为未来对 BWC 的研究提供建议，特别是需要从完全不同的问题表征出发进行研究。