New policing technologies have generated solutions to many policing issues. In particular, portable camera systems (in-car or body-worn) have been offered as a tool to address the issue of police excessive use of force. It has been argued that police camera systems increase transparency in law enforcement and deter both police officers and citizens from engaging in undesirable behaviors during encounters. However, the question of how effective these technologies are in increasing the accountability of police departments still remains unanswered. Some argue that the use of camera systems to record police behavior does not create a significant reduction in excessive use-of-force complaints or does not serve as an effective accountability tool as expected. From this perspective, this study explores the impact of in-car camera usage on police use-of-force investigations. This research examines the impact of in-car cameras on the total, dismissed, and sustained excessive use-of-force complaints against 891 police departments in the USA with more than 100 sworn officers. We employed Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) 2007 dataset to conduct this analysis. We utilized negative binomial regression analysis in STATA 15 to examine whether the adoption of vehicle camera systems by police agencies has an impact on dismissed and sustained complaints of inappropriate use-of-force. We found that the adoption of in-car cameras correlates with the number of dismissed cases; however, we did not find any significant relationship between in-car camera usage and sustained cases. Police departments using in-car camera systems are more likely to dismiss citizen complaints, rather than sustaining them. We concluded that video footages generated by in-car camera systems are inadequate in producing evidence to back up the complainants’ claims or in generating proof of excessive use of force for further investigation. Our findings suggest that police departments should not solely rely on in-car cameras if they want to enhance accountability and unearth police misconduct within their department.

新的警务技术为许多警务问题提供了解决方案。特别是，便携式摄像机系统（车载或随身携带）已被用作解决警察过度使用武力问题的工具。有人认为，警察摄像系统可以提高执法的透明度，并阻止警察和公民在遭遇时做出不良行为。然而，这些技术在增加警察部门问责制方面的效果如何这一问题仍未得到解答。一些人认为，使用摄像系统记录警察行为并不能显着减少过度使用武力的投诉，或者不能作为预期的有效问责工具。从这个角度来说，本研究探讨了车载摄像头的使用对警方使用武力调查的影响。这项研究调查了车载摄像头对美国 891 个警察部门（拥有 100 多名宣誓官）的总体、驳回和持续过度使用武力投诉的影响。我们采用了执法管理和行政统计 (LEMAS) 2007 数据集来进行这项分析。我们在 STATA 15 中利用负二项回归分析来检查警察机构采用车载摄像系统是否对不恰当使用武力的驳回和持续投诉产生影响。我们发现车载摄像头的采用与驳回案件的数量相关；然而，我们没有发现车载摄像头的使用与持续案例之间存在任何显着关系。使用车载摄像头系统的警察部门更有可能驳回公民投诉，而不是维持投诉。我们的结论是，车载摄像系统生成的视频片段不足以提供证据来支持投诉人的主张，或无法为进一步调查提供过度使用武力的证据。我们的调查结果表明，如果警察部门想要加强问责制并发现部门内警察的不当行为，他们不应该仅仅依赖车载摄像头。