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

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Abstract

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.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Economics and Management, Open University of Cyprus, Open University of Cyprus 33, Giannou Kranidioti Avenue 2220, Latsia, Cyprus

    Angelo G. Constantinou & Kokkinos Markianos

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  1. Angelo G. Constantinou
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  2. Kokkinos Markianos
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Correspondence to Angelo G. Constantinou.

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The authors state that there is no conflict of interest.

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The questionnaire and methodology for this study was approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee of the Cyprus Police.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Constantinou, A.G., Markianos, K. Police Concerns Over Body-Worn Cameras—the Legitimator, the Nihilist, and the Agnostic: A Herald From Cyprus. Int Criminol 3, 77–91 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43576-023-00081-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s43576-023-00081-6

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