Friday 19 April 2013

Taser's Axon Flex


On April 8, 2013, the Rialto Police department released the results of a study on the impact of on-officer video cameras, specially utilising the AXON flex system from TASER. The 3.2 inch camera helps to reduce force and defend against lawsuits regarding police brutality.

The experiment began on began on February 13, 2012 and ran for a full 12-month period.
It included random assignment of all police shifts to either experimental (with camera) or control (without camera) conditions.

Key findings:

Officer worn cameras reduced the rate of use-of-force incidents by 59 percent. In other words, before the cameras, the rate of use of force incidents was 2.5 times higher than with cameras. Utilization of the cameras led to an 87.5 percent reduction in complaints. At the end of each shift the officers’ videos were uploaded to EVIDENCE.COM.

"These results carry significant implications for the future of the law enforcement profession," said Chief Tony Farrar, the principle investigator who led the study as his graduate degree thesis at Cambridge University. 

At the conclusion of the experimental period, the Rialto Police Department implemented 3-year Evidence.com  service plan and integrated AXON Flex video cameras into standard operations going forward. agencies that deploy TASER Flex on-officer cameras have also seen reduction in use of force and reduction in complaints," said Jason Droege, general manager of EVIDENCE.COM
Rialto has been a thought leader: this rigorous study scientifically proves the benefits of on-officer video