Policing universities: exploring the use of body-worn cameras (BWCs) by private campus security officers

ABSTRACT

Body-worn cameras (BWCs) are widely used across the public and private sectors, including in law enforcement, education, and transport. An extensive body of work exists on the use of BWCs by the public police and their impacts on officers and citizens’ behaviours. In contrast, literature on the use of BWCs use in private security is very limited. Even more so is research on the use of BWCs by private security on university campuses. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with campus security officers and senior management in a university in the United Kingdom (UK), this paper investigates how and why BWCs were initially introduced, how they are used and with what outcomes. We find that adoption of the cameras was to strengthen the professionalism and credibility of officers and their ability to collect evidence. In practice, camera use is infrequent and concentrated on specific days and times of the week. BWC footage is prominently used in the investigation of alleged violations of university regulations, and it has become a tool to hold students accountable for their behaviour in a way that was not possible before the adoption of the cameras. The study offers an important contribution to our understanding of the operation and outcomes of private security on university campuses and, more specifically, the role of BWCs in these.

KEYWORDS:

• Body-worn cameras
• private security
• campus security
• legitimacy

Introduction

This paper provides an analysis of the deployment and uses made of body-worn cameras (hereafter: BWCs) by private security officers on a university campus in the United Kingdom (UK). Generating research evidence regarding the policing of university campuses and the role of BWCs within that is important. First, the policing of university campuses has received little academic attention. Yet, understanding the structure and outcomes of the policing of campuses is important. This is because there are notable social and situational features that distinguish campuses from other policing contexts (Sloan, Lanier and Beer 2000, Paoline and Sloan 2003, Ferrandino 2012, Patten et al. 2016). These include the environment in which campus policing is conducted – shaped by the nature of students’ routines and lifestyles, the open nature of the campus, and the presence of valuable property. The mandate of campus officers may also differ from that of other officers. For example, campus officers may be expected to provide information about or administer disciplinary rules and respond to wide ranging campus emergencies. Additionally, campus policing tends to downplay the enforcement of the criminal law since it is not considered desirable to criminalise students. Studies have shown that maintaining positive relationships with students has an affirmative effect on perceptions of safety on campus, and the effectiveness (Williams et al. 2016) and legitimacy (Jacobsen 2015) of campus police. The research which has been conducted regarding the policing of campuses has been largely based in the United States (US). However, there are significant differences between policing of campuses in the US and UK. Notably, campus policing in the US is usually conducted by sworn police officers whereas in the UK campuses are primarily policed by private security officers. In turn, there is little research on the operation of private security officers based on campuses in the UK (there is more, although not extensive, material from the US e.g. Gaub 2022).

Furthermore, there is very little research on the use of BWCs on university campuses and, more generally, by private security officers. BWCs are increasingly used by law enforcement agencies around the world, their growing popularity part of a broader process of deploying surveillance technologies in policing. Advocates of BWCs claim that they have the potential to increase police accountability; that they decrease police use of force; that they can help to improve police-community relationships and police-public interactions (Backman and Löfstrand 2022). The assumption behind the adoption of the cameras is that increased monitoring of officers on patrol will deter police misconduct (Williams et al. 2021), and that the device will bring about positive changes in citizens’ behaviour, although officers report contrasting views on this (Wood et al. 2023). Overall, the evidence base produced so far is neither definitive nor consistent, and ‘there remains substantial uncertainty about whether BWCs can reduce officer use of force, but the variation in effects suggests there may be conditions in which BWC could be effective’ (Lum et al. 2020, p. 1). While there is an ever-growing body of work looking at the use of BWCs by police officers (see reviews by Lum et al. 2019, 2020), the same cannot be said of the use of BWCs by private security guards, especially on university campuses, where the literature base is very thin. This is an important omission from the extant literature and the ways that private security guards make use of this technology is under researched. And a gap that this article aims to address.

Private security has steadily grown in countries across the Global North (van Steden and de Waard 2013), and the number of private security officers easily surpasses that of police officers. As of 2020, in England and Wales there were approximately 330,000 Security Industry Association (SIA) license holders (SIA 2020) and 130,000 sworn police officers (Home Office 2021). There is a growing body of work of comparative research on the working cultures of police officers and private security. Similarities have been found in terms of the values and motivations of the two groups (Rigakos 2002, Singh and Kempa 2007), leading to the argument that a ‘shared “security ethos” exists across sectors’ (van Steden et al. 2015, p. 37). However, others have challenged this conclusion, arguing that private security is not characterised by a police-like culture, and their workers do not necessarily aspire to join the police (Button 2016), but want to move on to ‘any other job with better working conditions and a higher social status’ (Terpstra 2016, p. 81). Due to high turnover of workers, private security lacks internal solidarity (Wakefield 2008), with both police officers and private security perceiving important differences between the two groups (Manzo 2010, van Steden et al. 2015). Additionally, research on the adoption and diffusion of technological innovations within organisations, both within (Willis et al. 2007, Koper et al. 2014, Lum et al. 2017) and beyond the police (Oliveira and Martins 2011, Senarathna et al. 2014, Wang and Feeney 2016) has extensively explored the ways in which differences in organisational culture will affect how technology is going to be used. In light of these two bodies of work, whether findings from research on police use of BWCs are applicable to the case of campus security is a question to be answered empirically.

In presenting findings of a study on how campus security officers in a university in the UK use BWCs, this paper thus offers a contribution to an under-studied area of policing. The ways in which a specific technology will be used (in this case, BWCs) depend on the interplay between the preferences and attitudes of users, the rules and procedures in places, and the affordances of the device (Hutchby 2001). In light of this process, end users are bound to play an active part in producing ‘the meanings of technology’ (Chan 2001, p. 144) within their organisation. Even when a technology is accepted, it is not a given that the purpose it ends up serving is the one it was designed for (Manning 2014). There is a vast literature exploring how the police use technology, and how the adoption of specific tools can affect the working practices and beliefs of officers (among others, see Adams and Jennison 2007, Manning 2008, Williams and Johnson 2013, Willis, Koper and Lum 2020). In contrast, we know very little about how these processes unfold in private security (Löfstrand and Backman 2022). This is the gap this paper wishes to address.

Based on semi-structured interviews with security officers and senior university management in one university campus in the UK, this paper explores attitudes around the adoption of BWCs, how they are used by the officers and the outcomes they generate. In asking campus security officers about their attitudes towards BWCs, the nature of the deployment of BWCs, the uses that BWC footage is put to, and perceptions of outcomes, this article will contribute to two distinct areas of policing scholarship, both equally under-explored: the use of this technology in private security settings, and the policing of university campuses.

Literature review

The impact of technological innovation on an organisation is not straightforward; far from being a purely technical process governed by what the technology is designed to do, how a specific tool will become embedded into an organisation is at least partly determined by the existing structures and practices of that same organisation (for example, see Willis et al. 2004). Policing is not an exception. In this literature review we consider first the literature regarding police use of BWCs, officer attitudes to and perceptions of BWCs, before moving on to the use of BWCs in the public sector, by campus police and private security.

Police officer use and perceptions of BWCs

The rationale for introducing BWCs in police services – at least in the US from which most of the research has been generated – was to reduce use of force and improve accountability. Systematic reviews of this body of research report mixed findings (Lum et al. 2019, 2020, Backman and Löfstrand 2022). For example, Lum et al (2020) concluded that there is substantial uncertainty about whether BWCs can reduce officer use of force. They suggest that this indicates that the context in which BWCs are used is important, in that there might be circumstances where BWCs reduce use of force and others where they do not (Lum et al. 2020). Lum et al. (2020) also find that BWCs do not seem to affect other police and citizen behaviours in a consistent manner, including officers’ self-initiated activities or arrest behaviours, dispatched calls for service, or assaults and resistance against police officers. They find that BWCs can reduce the number of citizen complaints against police officers, but it is unclear whether this finding signals an improvement in the quality of police–citizen interactions or a change in reporting (Lum et al. 2020). Overall, the reviews confirm the context in which the cameras are adopted is essential in considering whether they result in a reduction of the use of force, and that it is still not clear from existing studies how exactly the presence of BWCs affects the behaviour of both police officers and citizens.

In their review, Lum et al. (2019) highlight how officers tend to become more supportive of the use of cameras over time, with cameras coming to be seen as a useful tool for the collection of evidence and for the protection of officers against spurious claims by citizens. They are also seen as a memory aid to rely on when writing reports after an incident. Concerns around BWCs are to do with technical problems, potential increase in workloads, and limits being placed on officers’ discretion (Koper et al. 2015). Research has tried to establish what makes it more likely for police officers to be broadly supportive of BWCs (see Lum et al. 2019 for details), but so far there is no conclusive evidence of any relationship between negative or positive attitudes around cameras and perceptions of organisational justice (Lawshe et al. 2019, Todak and Gaub 2020).

Use of BWCs in other public sector agencies

A small body of work has examined the use of BWCs amongst other groups of public sector workers such as those that work on the railways (e.g. Barak et al. 2019), for the ambulance service (Kendall-Raynor 2018, Bruton et al. 2022), in hospitals (Hardy et al. 2017, Ellis et al. 2019), schools (Taylor 2018), and prisons (Beales and Marsh 2016, Sydes, Dodd and Antrobus 2022). The rationale for introducing BWCs amongst these groups has tended to be to reduce violence towards these groups of staff and protect them from the risk of false allegations. Research has focused on whether these outcomes have been achieved, and staff attitudes towards using the cameras.

Barak et al. (2019) found BWCs were associated with a reduction of assaults against railway staff in England and Wales and concluded that equipping staff with BWCs decreases the risk of assault both for employees who are wearing cameras and those members of staff in their vicinity. Ellis et al. (2019) indicate that the use of BWCs in inpatient mental health wards was associated with a reduction in the overall seriousness of aggression and violence in reported incidents, with a marked decline in the use of tranquilising injections during restraint incidents. BWC use was also associated with a significant reduction in the seriousness of incidents on local services admissions wards for patients admitted informally (i.e. voluntarily) or sectioned under the Mental Health Act 2007. Kendall-Raynor (2018) reported on the roll out of BWCs amongst ambulance crews as part of an attempt to reduce violence, suggesting that trials had found them to be successful. There has been a dearth of published research on BWCs being worn by school personnel and the issues that this introduces to education and very little is known about how teachers and students feel about their use (Taylor 2018). Thus, in contrast with the reviews on police use of BWCs, existing research suggests that in other public sector agencies the cameras do lead to a reduction in violent behaviour which improves the safety of the staff wearing the device, their colleagues nearby and members of the public.

Use of BWCs by campus police officers and private security

There are very few studies of the use of BWCs by campus police officers (Pelfrey and Keener 2016, 2018, Gaub 2022). However, no significant differences have been identified in terms of why campus police agencies might want to adopt BWCs, or how they use them compared to their municipal counterparts (Gaub 2022). Studies of campus police demonstrate that increasing transparency, providing officer oversight, and protecting officers from complaints (as well as collecting evidence) are key aims of establishing BWC systems and are seen as their primary benefits (Pelfrey and Keener 2016, 2018, Gaub 2022). This is consistent with a broader process where campus police mimic the culture, mission, structure and organisation of municipal police services to promote their legitimacy (among others: Sloan, Lanier and Beer 2000, Peak, Barthe and Garcia 2008, Wilson and Wilson 2011, Perez and Bromley 2015).

As is the case for their use in public sector agencies other than the police, adoption of BWCs is linked to a need to protect officers from assaults in private security as well. In an article focused on how the adoption of BWCs affects the working environment of private security officers, Löfstrand and Backman show how in the Swedish private security industry the introduction of BWCs has been justified ‘as a tool to protect private security officers [against assaults] from the public’ (Löfstrand and Backman 2022, p. 64). Moving away from a characterisation of the cameras as a device that can be used for the surveillance of workers to one that can be used to guarantee their security was instrumental in neutralising the concerns of unions that BWCs could be used to monitor officers, thus legitimising their use in the country. Overall, this literature review indicates that the organisational context in which a technology is adopted and the attitudes and opinions of end users will both affect how a device ends up being used. We do not know much about use of BWCs in private security, nor about their use on university campuses. After a discussion of the context and methods of the research, the empirical sections of the paper will detail the results of a study on use of BWCs in a university campus in the UK.

Context and methods of the study

The university where the study was conducted has a large campus on the outskirts of an urban centre and a student population of approximately 15 thousand, of which about a third live on campus. To house them, there are ten halls of residence spread across three sites. Also on campus are a shop, post office, several cafes and food outlets along with a pub and a nightclub. The campus is patrolled 24/7 by an in-house security team, with officers organised into four teams each following the same shift pattern of two-day shifts, two-night shifts and four days off. Access to most university buildings is open during the day, with officers tasked with unlocking doors to classrooms and offices between 7 and 7:30 am, and locking them again in the evening. The campus is covered by CCTV, while officers are equipped with a BWC and a GPS-enabled radio. They are in constant contact with the control room, which is always staffed by at least one officer. After approaching the head of security for the institution, we were able to successfully negotiate their cooperation for the study. No restrictions were placed on the research team in terms of access, and upon completion of the ethical review process at the authors’ institution¹ we were able to start fieldwork. The choice of the specific institution to be studied is one that was guided by practical considerations and convenience. Scholarly literature (Seawright and Gerring 2008, Yin 2018) has discussed several techniques that can be used to guide researchers in the selection of cases; in light of its characteristics, the institution where fieldwork was conducted can be considered a ‘typical’ example of a campus university. Given how little is known about campus policing in general and the use of BWCs within it in particular, we are assuming that whether a university is campus-based or is spread across a number of buildings across a city or town will have an impact on how its spaces and students are policed. While there are likely to be other factors that are also relevant, we simply do not yet know which dimensions are of theoretical importance. The results of this exploratory study will contribute to establish a knowledge base for future research in this area.

The research is based on a body of twenty semi-structured interviews conducted in the first six months of 2022. We first went to the security staff room on four different occasions, to present the research project to the officers in each team, then followed up via email to recruit respondents for our study. Out of the approximately 30 patrolling officers employed by the university, we were able to secure the participation of 13 individuals, including three team leaders (respondents CS1 to CS13). On average, these respondents had worked at the institution for 8.7 years, with the longest serving officer having been in post for 20 years. Eight of the officers we interviewed had relevant prior professional experience, having worked in private security, or served in the police or the army. Additionally, we also interviewed three senior members of university management (respondents M1 to M3). Overall, out of the roughly forty members of staff that are employed in total in the security department, we carried out sixteen interviews. These ranged in length from 15 to 120 min, with more than half lasting for at least 40 min. As we were not able to interview students for this piece of research, we decided to include those members of university staff who are commonly tasked with watching BWC footage as part of their role. As a result of this, we also spoke to 3 members of the office for disciplinary violations committed by students (D1 to D3), and one campus warden (W1).

The interviews with security personnel included questions about the background of officers, the use of BWCs, the outcomes they generate, attitudes and opinions about the cameras themselves and how footage is stored and accessed. Interviews with disciplinary officers and the warden touched upon the role of BWC footage in their work.

To facilitate participation to the study, we gave interviewees the opportunity to choose whether they wanted to meet with us face to face or online. As a result, several interviews took place online using Microsoft Teams, with the rest carried out in person depending on the preference of individual respondents. All the interviews were video or audio recorded and professionally transcribed, with identifying details removed to preserve the anonymity of our respondents and the institution they work for. The transcripts were analysed thematically following an iterative process of data familiarisation, code generation, identification, review and refinement of themes (Braun and Clarke 2006).

Results

The introduction of BWCs

When the introduction of BWCs was being considered, senior management promoted them as having several benefits. First, they were seen as a means of providing credible evidence of the nature of the incidents that occurred on campus. In turn, this evidence could be used to support criminal or disciplinary investigations. Significantly, senior management explicitly acknowledged how the decision to adopt BWCs was mapped onto current police practice.

It seemed to me that when we seize drugs or whatever it might be, this is a sort of low-threshold case, let's say, but when we search a student's room for anything, and I have to give authority for that. Once we've done that, best practice and good practice is to be able to record what we did, which is a police practice. So that was one of the drivers for it, (…) we want to be able to show the integrity of the evidence, the continuity of it and any comments that were made. (…) The main thing was for me integrity of evidence capture and yes, being able to present strong disciplinary cases and capture things as they are in the middle of the night when people are really, really playing up. (M3)

Second, the cameras were also considered a tool that could be used to capture officer conduct and performance. In so doing, promoting professional behaviour, and promoting the credibility of officers. As the same participant explained:

I expected it [the introduction of BWCs] to, not that I had any doubts they were doing it, but behaviour or my teams, the way they spoke to people, that would be good, that’d be a capture of professionalism. (…) I wanted to make sure my team were being professional in all cases. (M3)

The accounts of the officers suggested somewhat mixed views about the original introduction of the cameras. Some were clearly supportive of their introduction. In their support they mirrored the reasons promoted by the university management when the cameras were first introduced: generally, because they were thought to generate conclusive evidence about the nature of incidents that officers dealt with on campus. More specifically, those welcoming the introduction of BWCs thought that the footage would corroborate an officer’s accounts of incidents and expediate investigations and making it more likely that cases would be successfully concluded. This participant explained:

They are going to be useful because they will take away the argument looking at it. It means that where students were winning on appeal, because there wasn’t evidence, then it’s going to be a bit harder and in a lot of cases it has proved that is what happened. (CS2)

Others expressed a degree of wariness and some concerns about the introduction of the cameras. Primarily, campus officers were concerned that turning the cameras on might aggravate a situation and make individuals even harder to deal with. As this officer put it:

Yeah, I mean to start with, when we were first given them, I did think, ‘This is going to make the situation worse. People aren’t going to want to be recorded, especially if they are aggressive already.’ By you sticking a camera in their face, I thought that was going to make things worse. (CS8)

Officers also expressed an initial wariness about the process of using the cameras and that doing so would add to workloads. As one stated:

But then when it first came in I thought oh, I’ve forgotten to take it with me. And, you know, it was very much, you know, “Did you get him?” “Oh I forgot to turn it on.” It was very much like that. It was a bit haphazard with regards to how we used them. (CS5)

‘And another: ‘initially we thought maybe an extra job or extra bit of work’ (CS9). Some expressed concerns that the footage might be used to discipline officers. One participant explaining that ‘I think that’s what other people think, they’re going to get in trouble with you and they say something and you shouldn’t have said it. I think that was a worry’ (CS5). Others simply expressed a degree of indifference. As one participant told us

I didn’t even think about it to be honest with you. To be honest, it wasn’t even mentioned. I mean, I only knew I had a radio, and I just thought it was just a natural part of your security thing. (CS11)

Officers’ attitudes towards BWCs

Despite some officers originally expressing concerns, all agreed that any concerns were quickly dissipated and that they had become an indispensable part of the kit of the officers. As one officer explained:

By you sticking a camera in their face, I thought that was going to make things worse. But actually it didn’t, so that sort of changed my mind very quickly’ (CS8) and another ‘But as things moved on and people were seeing the benefits of it, they all come onboard and they all realised that, yeah alright. (CS4)

In turn, officers drew attention to how the cameras accorded several benefits within their work. Firstly, and reflecting the above points, a primary benefit linked to the generation of better-quality evidence to support cases that it is harder to dispute, with one officer stating:

And the level of support that it gives us with the report and with the investigations, so we know we are sending off a written report and the video footage, and I think it just backs up what we are saying in our report […] I think a lot more cases were probably sort of, you know maybe lesser sort of punishment if you like, or lesser consequences, whereas now we have got the video evidence and something is taken maybe more seriously because it is supported, it is backed up. You know whereas as I keep saying, it is my word against their word sort of thing, but now there is my word and the camera, and obviously their word. So, you know whether it supports them, or whether it supports me. (CS8)

Secondly, officers drew attention to how the cameras provided them with protection. As one put it: ‘Well the general scenario of using body-worn cameras is obviously for your own protection and for the protection of others so that’s the first thing’ (CS5). Protection was not generally understood in terms of the physical safety of officers. Instead, it was understood in terms of protection against claims that students might make. In the interviews, it soon became apparent that a major concern for security officers is the risk of their accounts not being believed, and students being able to questions their conduct and professionalism when facing disciplinary investigation. As mentioned earlier in the paper, after BWCs were introduced, officers soon realised that they now had something that could corroborate their version of events if/when challenged by students, thus offering a level of protection they did not have before. As one stated: ‘At the moment whenever we go out for any kind of incident we use the body-worn camera, make sure we capture everything there on the camera, so we are safe, we are not being penalised afterwards’ (CS3) and another ‘If somebody puts in a complaint about the security officer say, they can look at the video’ (CS6). In sum, despite some concerns being raised about the introduction of the cameras, this soon shifted into a position whereby the cameras were seen as instrumental in supporting safety and security on the campus and offering protection to security officers. We turn now to the primary ways that the cameras operated.

Activating BWCs

When BWCs were first introduced, their deployment was voluntary, but officers are now required to wear them. However, the cameras are not always recording, and officers decide when to turn them on. This university did not have a policy about when officers should turn the cameras on and doing so is discretionary, although officers must warn those around them when they start recording. Officers were mindful that turning the cameras on may prompt negative reactions and gave careful consideration about when to do so since ‘Otherwise you're going to make very bad reputation to the security; security just put the camera on for no reason. Then you've got to be very sensible’ (CS1). Officers reported that the cameras were not usually recording and the reasons why they were turned on was highly context specific. As one participant stated:

The situation will tell you whether you need to turn it on or not. Yes, variable, yes. Like if the building is on fire or something we need to capture the images then straightaway we put the camera on. If there is a serious incident going on, we straightaway, we put the camera on before we go to the scene yes. (CS1)

However, as the quote indicates, accounts suggest that there were incidents which officers were more likely to record such as reports of serious crime, health and safety incidents (such as fire or flooding), and, additionally, reports of disorder associated with the late-night economy. This latter instance was particularly common at the weekend and on nights where the on-campus nightclub was open.

In turn, officers reported that where and when the cameras are turned on is influenced by the daily routines of the university, the work that officers are conducting, and the nature of the incidents that they are called to deal with. Officers are very clearly called to deal with many kinds of incidents and are engaged in different kinds of work (Menichelli et al. forthcoming). However, much of the work that they conduct has little to do with responding to crime and disorder and is more concerned with supporting the day-to-day operation of the university – especially during working hours.

Participant accounts show that during the day officers are mostly concerned with supporting the campus environment – carrying out tasks such as locking and unlocking doors, traffic management, attending medical emergencies and providing first aid, supporting health and safety incidents, and conducting patrol – rather than dealing with reports of crime and disorder. In the context of these routine activities, the cameras generally would not normally be turned on (health and safety incidents such as fire or flood being something of an exception). In many cases (such as medical situations) it was considered inappropriate to do so, meaning that cameras tended not to be deployed in the day. As one officer told us:

Through the day we take them out, but we very rarely turn them on through the day’ (CS10). For another: ‘it’s the night-time really [… .] it’s probably the same with the Police and everything I’d imagine. Days are generally quieter, but we have different things to do on days. (CS6)

This starts to shift throughout the evening when the officers are called to deal with different kinds of incidents more routinely. Overnight officers certainly dealt with situations which reflect those dealt with during the day – medical emergencies (physical and mental health related), lost keys and health and safety issues where BWCs are more or less likely to be turned on. However, they also more regularly dealt with issues that require the use of BWCs, including criminal offences (especially dealing drugs), aspects of the night-time economy, and any problematic behaviour of students in university managed accommodation. As one participant stated: ‘I think at the moment, camera on is just for most taking drugs, parties, after nightclubs, fighting’ (CS7). To summarise, the activation of BWCs is left to the discretion of officers. In the daytime, officers are busy supporting routine activities across campus, for which cameras are rarely used. BWCs are more frequently turned on in the evening, from problems ranging from drug dealing to noise complaints and curfew violations across the residential parts of campus.

Within the accounts of officers, using the cameras to support responses to complaints regarding drug use, smoking, and excessive noise within university managed accommodation was especially salient. One of our interviewees explained that:

When you receive a call from the people about a noise complaint, a certain area, they give us the address, we go there. But before we go there we wear our body camera, make sure it is running well [… .] And most of them are very, very rude and they are not polite and they’re just aggressive. They’re all drunk, so there’s no way they can listen to us. So we have to capture every image, everything at the event, on the camera. When they challenge us, after, when they’re completely gone off the drunk, they are conscious, and they say, ‘I didn’t do this, no, I think I was okay.’ And sometimes they make allegation to us. So evidence that show them ‘look, this is you’ (CS3).

Again, the decision to start recording was described by officers as dependent on the circumstances that they encounter. However, the attitude of the individuals involved in an encounter with a security officer seems to be important, as one of our interviewees explained: ‘Oh okay, peoples’ mannerisms and the level and what they’re saying to you and the way they’re saying it to you. I tend to go on body language a lot of the time’ (CS6). That said, accounts suggested that officers recognise situations where the cameras are more proactively turned on in advance of speaking to an individual. First, in case of noise complaints officers would normally deploy them if they could hear the noise before attending the scene, as one participant stated: ‘I normally use them and I always put mine on before I go into a noise complaint’ (CS5). Another mentioned that:

The person ringing up says it’s loud music, there’s lots of people, you would normally put that on as you walked through the door. You wouldn’t switch it on halfway through talking to them, you’d start off with it straight on. (CS10)

Noise then seems to be a flag to start recording incidents, as one officer stated: ‘You can be outside a building and you can tell that there’s absolutely rammed full of people so you’ve just got to turn it on’ (CS6).

Uses of BWC footage

The primary function of the camera footage was to generate evidence that could be used by the police or the university to investigate incidents that occurred on the campus. Where officers have recorded incidents – and this is relatively unusual – they are downloaded onto a secure system and marked with an incident number. Participants drew attention to how access to the footage is strictly controlled. Only team leaders and managers have direct access to footage once it is downloaded and if others – from the university or elsewhere – want to see footage it must be requested. This is what one participant had to say about police requests for footage (from CCTV or BWCs):

There’s a process we have to go through, we can’t just give it to them, they have to do a DPA [data access request] and that’s got to be … the terms of what they want it for have to be defined specifically, so we can’t just hand over anything and we don’t hand over anything. (CS2)

In turn, officers reported that ‘the vast majority of images that were recorded are never actually viewed’ (CS4). As per university regulations, all BWC footage that is not marked as evidence in a disciplinary hearing or a criminal inquiry is automatically deleted 28 days after being recorded.

However, in the aftermath of an incident attended by officers, footage may be requested to support an investigation. Whilst the footage might be used to investigate crimes committed on campus, participants drew attention to how the footage was much more likely to be used to support university disciplinary investigations. Reflecting the above discussion, investigations tended to focus on more or less serious breaches of university rules and regulations – often linked to complaints of noise, smoking or drug use. In the cases of breaches of university rules and regulations, footage was most likely to be requested by accommodation wardens or by members of university disciplinary panels and used to build a case against that student. BWCs have facilitated this process in two ways: first, having footage of an incident cuts down on the amount of paperwork needed on the part of officers, as one participant posited:

if you’ve got it on the camera you don’t have to write so much. Because you can make reference to the video. I think it’s more reassuring because that’s what you’ve captured at that time so there’s no argument and also the incidents are being dealt with quicker. (CS2)

Second, the footage was thought to bring more cases to a successful conclusion, largely because the footage gives a clearer picture of the nature of an incident, as one of our respondents commented: ‘Once it's caught on camera, they can see exactly what's gone on. So they've got like a true picture for them and plus they can view the footage’ (M1). The role played by BWC footage in facilitating disciplinary investigations against students was also confirmed by the disciplinary officers we interviewed in the study:

It’s brilliant. It is absolutely invaluable to some of the cases that we put forward, because the polite way of putting this is there will be conflicting accounts about what has happened, and the footage will often completely validate or disprove one side or the other. It is extremely helpful, and it makes things so much quicker because there it is, it is in front of you, it is crystal clear. There will still be statements, there will still be written statements that will accompany the body-worn camera footage, but yeah it is incredibly helpful. (D1)

The footage provided an important means of corroborating officer accounts of incidents, providing the evidence needed to successfully conclude incidents, and make it harder for students to appeal decisions. This was especially relevant in the context of the campus because

security officers were getting involved in a lot of volatile situations, and a bit like the police, you know their word wasn’t quite good enough a lot of the time. What they say they saw, people didn’t always believe, and we felt we needed a means of backing them up. (M2)

Therefore, being able to rely on video evidence strengthened the position of the officers and the impact their reports had on disciplinary panels. As one participant explained:

Like there are many students has been expelled from the university. Before that, they have to see all the evidence of what happened on the day. So basically that is strong evidence for the [disciplinary panels] to use it and if they have to expel any student from the campus. They will challenge. Even they have done so many things wrong, but even when they are conscious they challenge. So as evidence to show them, this is what you challenge, but this is what you did. So, you know, otherwise if there’s no evidence, there is not any proof then it will be difficult to take action. (CS3)

The positive impact that the availability of BWC has had in terms of the outcomes of investigations in cases of misconduct was confirmed by the disciplinary officers we spoke to:

Yes. I think it increases the likelihood that the allegation will be upheld because it’s pretty incontrovertible, if you’ve got that literal video footage of … I think it makes it harder for them to deny or wriggle their way out of it, that way. If you’ve got footage of a security officer saying that they can smell cannabis, for example, that’s more … because our standard of proof is balance of probability. It’s not beyond reasonable doubt. So, on balance, a security officer is not going to be lying. They’re not going to walk into a room and be like, ‘Oh, it smells of cannabis.’ If it doesn’t. They’re a more credible witness because students will try and deny and say, ‘Oh, no. There was no smell of cannabis.’ That kind of thing. So, yes. I think it helps get a … conviction is the wrong word. That’s a legal term but yes, upheld allegation. (D3)

Likewise, but less commonly, footage was seen to be important for the police in conducting investigations. This participant explained that:

Yeah, the whole thing comes down to the independence of it. The police seem to want everything recorded these days. It obviously corroborates what people say, not just the security officer, but other people there as well, because if there is an incident the police are involved with, then anybody who is there is a witness, but this corroborates what they say as well. (M2)

Participants generally believed that the footage generated by the cameras was suitable for this purpose and that the system worked well. Overall, participants suggested that the footage was good quality, although this could be affected by the quality of light, officer clothing, and the angle of the camera.

Outcomes of BWC use

As noted, an aim of introducing BWCs was to engender professionalism. Some respondents felt that the cameras may have had that impact, as one commented: ‘People are now on camera so they are more professional’ (CS2). However, most of the participants agreed that, once they got used to having the cameras as part of their kit, their behaviour did not change depending on whether the device was recording or not, as they would always approach situations in a professional manner in any case. As one participant put it: ‘we don’t change our behaviour. Because we have to follow all the rules and procedures what we’ve been told. We can't be different when we switch cameras on or when the cameras are off’ (CS3).

Participants were also asked to reflect on whether the presence of the cameras had altered student behaviour. In respect to this, there were somewhat mixed views. Participants drew attention to how turning on the cameras de-escalated situations in many cases, with one mentioning that: ‘You do find because we go in and we tell them the video is on that 90% will calm down straight away because they know they’re being filmed; you’ll always get the ones that won’t’ (CS2). However, as the quote suggests this cannot be guaranteed, with one respondent arguing that ‘My impression is I haven't seen people becoming calmed from the product that I've seen’ (M3). This may be especially so where drugs or alcohol were involved, as an interviewee argued: ‘When they are intoxicated they don’t listen, whether we have switched on the camera or not’ (CS3). Or indeed that turning on the cameras may make situations worse, as one participant described:

Yeah, we have had people filming us, we have had people sort of going up to the camera like, ‘Hi.’ Then we have had people become abusive, some people cover themselves up, like facemasks on, hoods up, and stuff like that because they don’t want to be identified. (CS8)

This suggests that the context in which the cameras are turned on and the behaviour of the individuals (both students and officers) involved will influence the impact. As one participant explained:

Yes it just depends on how you approach them as well. I mean if you walk in and go right my body worn’s on, what have you been doing, you’re going to get attitude back. So I think it does … it kind of is about the person you are as well, who’s wearing it. If you’re a bit aggressive you’re kind of fighting a losing battle with them trying to be nice back. So you just treat them how you would [have liked to be treated] when you were 16. You don’t want to be shouted at. You just want to be told, look you’re going to get in trouble, stop it. (CS10)

More generally, participants also suggested that students were used to the presence of BWCs (be it at the university of elsewhere) and so expected to see them. This broader normalisation of surveillance devices is something that clearly emerged from the interviews, as one participant explained:

I think again, people take it that they see cameras out in the streets, out in the towns, police wear them, other security companies wear them; you go into [well known supermarket] they wear them, so I think in many ways people have got used to it. (CS2)

As a result of students being aware of, and unfazed by, campus security wearing BWCs, respondents thought that they do not have an impact on relationships between officers and students. As one put it

The students know that we have cameras because we wear them all the time so they see the cameras on us and they know we can deploy the camera at any time. So they are aware we have cameras because we wear it all the time. (CS9)

Hence their overall impact on relationships between security and students might be muted.

Lastly, participants were asked to reflect on whether the presence of BWCs had influenced levels of crime and disorder on campus. Regarding this, most of our participants believed that they have made no discernible difference. As one told us:

Otherwise even if we have used the camera, I don’t see there is a reduction on noise complaints and the parties, we’ve never seen that, no. I have seen myself the same person three or four times at that kind of incident. (CS3)

Conclusion and discussion

This article presented the results of a small-scale study of the use of BWCs by campus security officers in a UK university. We found that the decision to introduce BWCs was explicitly mapped onto existing police practice. Campus security management saw the cameras as a way to strengthen the professionalism and credibility of officers and their ability to collect evidence on incidents that might happen on campus. While there were initial concerns around increased workloads, the surveillance of officers by management, and escalating behaviour on the part of those being filmed, these soon eased, and the cameras quickly became another part of the equipment for campus officers. Officers acknowledged the benefits in terms of evidence gathering that the cameras brought about.

When and why BWCs are activated varies according to the daily routines of the university and officers are free to decide when to turn them on or off. Overall, BWCs are not turned on very often. Particularly in the daytime, much of the work carried out by campus security has little to do with crime and disorder and more to do with the maintenance and operation of the university environment, so there is rarely the need to use the cameras. BWCs are more commonly used in the night-time, especially when the on campus night club is open and more generally during weekends. The majority of recordings are not used or viewed again and are automatically deleted after 28 days. Significantly, in the interviews officers openly talked of their resistance in turning the cameras on because of the need to maintain good relations with the students, and the resultant worry that indiscriminate recording might negatively affect these. Overall, BWCs are used for serious events, with incidents involving drugs being quite salient in this regard, in some health and safety episodes (fires or flooding), and most commonly to manage aspects of the night-time economy, especially noise and curfew violations and other complaints in university managed student accommodation. This is in contrast with what research has found in terms of police use of BWCs (Lum et al. 2019, 2020), where the devices are most commonly used to reduce use of force and improve accountability, although with mixed results (Lum et al. 2020).

When incidents warrant further investigation, either by the police or, most commonly, by the university itself as a result of disciplinary violations committed by students, BWC footage is relied upon. Respondents agreed that the availability of footage had improved the process and outcomes of the investigations. The study also investigated whether BWCs have an impact on the behaviour of either security officers or students. Here, respondents felt that the cameras did not have any effect on their own behaviour as they always maintained professional conduct, whether or not the cameras were on. The picture was more complex in terms of students’ behaviour, as officers thought that the civilising effect of BWCs only manifested when students were not under the effect of alcohol or drugs.

Overall, our findings offer a significant contribution to existing scholarship on BWCs, both in terms of its use by private security and in the policing of university campuses. In our study, the decision to introduce BWCs was explicitly mapped onto existing police practice, with the cameras themselves an important component of wider efforts to increase and capture the professionalism of security officers, and to ensure the integrity of any evidence they might collect in the course of their job. Thinking about BWCs as a tool deployed to signal similarity with the police and their professional standards can help to explain why cameras ended up being used in quite different ways from what the literature on police use of BWCs has found, and specific features in how the use of cameras was regulated in the context we studied. This is particularly the case for officers having the freedom to decide if and when to turn cameras on or off, the lack of concern on the part of management with how often, or how little, each officer would activate their BWC and the overall low frequency of use of the cameras and the footage they produce.

The explicit goal of having campus security mirror current police practice is consistent with findings from scholarship on both campus police and private security. We have already discussed what the former have sought to do in the United States (among others: Sloan, Lanier and Beer 2000, Peak, Barthe and Garcia 2008, Perez and Bromley 2015) in an attempt to gain legitimacy, particularly in terms of pushing for the professionalisation of the workforce and stressing the similarities with municipal police forces. In much the same way, Thumala and colleagues discuss how ‘symbolic borrowing’ is one of the ways in which private security tries to ‘secure legitimacy by association’ (2011, p. 294). However, our focus on the work BWCs do on a symbolic level to communicate that campus security and the officers it employs are professional, credible and following proper procedure is in contrast with the limited scholarship on how their adoption in private security is about improving the working conditions of security officers (Löfstrand and Backman 2022). Such diverging interpretations of BWCs go to show how the context of implementation plays a significant part in how a technology ends up being adopted within an organisation and the meanings that are attached to it.

Our research has also highlighted how the use of BWCs is affected by ongoing concerns on the part of campus officers to establish and preserve positive relationships with students. The specific features of the campus environment mean that officers see the activation of their BWCs as a tool of last resort when faced with complex situations or dealing with particularly unruly students. The literature on campus police (Jacobsen 2015, Williams et al. 2016) has spoken about the need for campus police to maintain good relationships with students, and our research showed that the same considerations inform the work of security officers as well, and how they use BWCs. It remains to be seen how students perceive their relationship with security officers to be, and whether their interactions with them are procedurally just.

Finally, our research showed how BWC footage has come to play an important part in the institutional response to disciplinary violations committed by students. The availability of video evidence has made investigations of such events quicker and, according to our respondents, more likely to result in a sanction being issued against students. In this light, we can argue that in the institution we studied BWC footage has become a tool to hold students accountable for their behaviour in a way that was not possible before the adoption of the cameras. The ‘professional protection’ that officers are now able to rely on against spurious claims made by students can, at least in part, explain why officers are so supportive of the continued use of BWCs, even though they do not use the cameras much overall. This is in line with research on police use of BWCs (Lum et al. 2019, Malm 2019, White and Malm 2020), where ‘officers see BWCs as protecting themselves from the public, in particular, from frivolous complaints’ (Lum et al. 2019, p. 103).

In providing an insight into how BWCs are used by private security on a university campus, this study has demonstrated that campuses are policing contexts worthy of additional study. However, due to the limited scope of our research, additional empirical work is needed to expand on several of the findings we produced. Given the scarcity of literature on the use of BWCs by private security (Löfstrand and Backman 2022 is the only published work at the time of writing), empirical work is needed to clarify how the process of adoption unfolds, the narratives that are developed to justify it, and outcomes brought about in other contexts both within and beyond higher education. Equally, we are not able to make any claims about the attitudes and behaviours of campus security officers across the higher education sector and how these might affect BWC use. It remains to be seen whether there are specific institutional features that affect the conduct of security officers, how they relate to students, and how they use BWCs.

Finally, we do not know if and to what extent the use of BWCs to strengthen the accountability of students for their behaviour is common in other institutions as well. We also are not able to provide answers as to why campus officers feel so strongly that their words carry less weight than those of students’ so much so that they need the protection afforded by the cameras when interacting with them. Including the perspective of students and the viewing of BWC footage in future research will additionally make it possible to contribute to existing lines of inquiry in BWC scholarship, especially in terms of the impact of the cameras on the behaviour of students, and whether BWCs actually have a civilising effect on student-officer interactions. The view emerging from the interviews was a mixed one, and more research will be needed to assess how students respond to BWCs. In much the same way, while respondents did not generally think that the presence of BWCs has had a significant impact on levels of crime and disorder on campus, this is something that should also be further explored empirically.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by University of Surrey: [Grant Number AH0255].

Notes

1 Approval was granted by the University of Surrey Ethics Committee (ref no: FASS 20-21 109 EGA).