Baseline Study: Implementation of Police-Worn Body Cameras in Urban France

Spring 2017 Grant Recipient

Graduate Student

Bremen Donovan (Anthropology)

My dissertation is about how body-worn recording technologies in policing are affecting the production, admissibility, and evaluation of evidentiary claims. With CGII support, I will conduct a baseline study this summer in Paris, France to lay the groundwork for ethnographic fieldwork there beginning September 2017. I will conduct interviews with police and other law enforcement officials, as well as researchers, lawyers, non-governmental organizations, and activist collectives whose work is directly related to the deployment of body cams and/or issues of racial profiling and policing in France. This study will serve to contextualize current decisions regarding the adoption of these devices, map the actors involved, and elaborate relevant legal and technical considerations.