Watching the watchmen: A multi-site contextual study of police officers' perceptions of citizen monitoring

The nature of policing involves frequent public interactions, making it a highly visible profession. While this visibility is not a new phenomenon, recent technological advancements have facilitated the development of policing's "new visibility" (Goldsmith, 2010). Citizen monitoring is the practice of recording the police as they conduct their work and subsequently uploading this footage to the internet. Widespread social media usership has contributed to its prevalence and effectively enables the public to 'police the police'. Surveillance can have a significant impact on individuals and their actions (Campbell and Carlson, 2002). This study examined a sample (N=48) of Canadian and Dutch police officers' experiences with, and perceptions of, citizen monitoring. The study was guided by the questions: (1) What impact does citizen monitoring have on police officers' experiences and attitudes and behaviour? (2) What impact does citizen monitoring have on police officers' use of justified force? and (3) What role does context play in frontline police officers' experiences and perceptions of citizen monitoring? Results indicated that police officers can be affected by citizen monitoring. Specifically, the study found that an awareness of being recorded could contribute to a lack of confidence among police officers, that citizen monitoring sometimes led to situations in which the force option(s) used were less than was either required or necessary, that citizen monitoring could cause police officers to hesitate in scenarios that necessitated immediate, direct, and decisive action, and that citizen monitoring might, in some circumstances, have contributed to officers entirely by-passing situations that required action of some sort. This exploratory study addressed a significant deficit in research on citizen monitoring and aims to inform policy and training procedures.