Body cam-wearing cops risk assault

The risk of assault were 15 percent higher when police officers in the US and UK wore body cameras, according to a study.

London - Police officers may be more likely to suffer assaults if they are wearing body-worn cameras, a new study suggests. Preliminary results from a study of eight UK and US forces have found that rates of assault were around 15 percent higher when officers used the technology.

The research also suggested the presence of the cameras did not seem to have any bearing on the level of force used by a police officer. The study recorded the activities of eight police forces across the UK and the US - including the West Midlands, Cambridgeshire and Northern Ireland's PSNI - in a series of ten randomised-controlled trials.

It looked at what happened to police officers on shifts when they were working with body cameras and shifts when they weren't and found officers were 15 percent more likely to be attacked on average.

Nearly all police forces in England and Wales are now using body cameras in certain circumstances.

The Independent