Police Concerns Over Body-Worn Cameras—the Legitimator, the Nihilist, and the Agnostic: A Herald From Cyprus

The article explores the Cypriot police officers’ projections on the access of the front-line officers and their supervisors to the recorded material, the ‘censoring’ of police discretion, the improvement of procedural justice, and the respective citizens’ reactions. For collecting the data, a web-based survey—accessed via the intranet of Cypol—has been conducted among 449 sworn police officers, whose responses cast light on the anticipated ways in which officers could possibly react, should the individual bearing of cameras became a mandate. Findings derive from qualitative and quantitative data analysis and overall point out that the great majority (82%) of officers—the legitimators—endorse BWCs, a smaller percentage (11%) of officers reject them—the nihilists—and the smallest faction (7%) are unsure—the agnostics—about this prospect. Furthermore, male officers strongly agree with the use of BWCs to a greater extent than female officers and, also, officers engaged in operational duties, as opposed to other types of duties, support the use of BWCs to a significant degree. In all, the forthcoming of BWCs is conditionally, yet extensively endorsed.