Policing thru surveillance: the impacts of information and communication technology on the intersection of police and society in the United States

Singh, Ajay

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115349 Copy

Description

Title

Policing thru surveillance: the impacts of information and communication technology on the intersection of police and society in the United States

Author(s)

Singh, Ajay

Issue Date

2022-03-16

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Marshall, Anna-Maria

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Bayat, Asef

Committee Member(s)

• Dill, Brian
• Harwood, Stacy

Department of Study

Sociology

Discipline

Sociology

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• surveillance
• policing
• technology
• sousveillance

Abstract

Police departments in the United States are increasingly turning to information and communication technologies (ICTs) for meeting the challenges of policing in the 21st century. This includes what Andrew Goldsmith calls ‘policing’s new visibility,’ where the expanding observability of police-civilian encounters (PCEs) through ICTs creates greater scrutiny on departments, officers, and their practices. Within this context, small and midsize agencies are embracing body-worn cameras (BWCs) and externally facing communication apparatuses, arguing they provide greater transparency of departmental practices to the community while creating pathways to police accountability. However, there are significant gaps in the literature about how BWCs and similar ICTs fit within the existing infrastructure of small and midsize departments; how new ICTs impact their practices, personnel, and PCEs; and how actors from above and below conceptualize the definitions, practices, and potential connectivity between understandings of transparency and accountability in policing. Using archival research, semi-structured interviews, and quasi-participant observations with activists and departmental personnel at a municipal and a university police department in the Midwest city of Middle Junction, I examine the relationship between ICT-use, the reproduction of police-civilian power relationships, and the discursive shaping of transparency and accountability from above and below. I argue that BWC implementation in small and midsize agencies necessitates the harmonization of previously ad-hoc ICT implementation design strategies. The push towards interoperability leads these departments to pursue the techno-mediation of an ever-expanding number of practices, which functions to create new police practices, improve police efficiency, and increase the frequency and intensity of the reproduction of police powers. I call these changing dynamics in small and midsize agencies ‘policing thru surveillance.’ I describe the department’s ability to police thru surveillance as a labyrinth of internal and external challenges, all of which interact and impact the officers, their practices, and police-community relationships. Finally, I find the conceptualization of transparency and accountability to be a persistent site of contestation, with little homogeneity between understandings and practices from above and below. These findings extend the criminological and sociological literature by drawing attention to BWCs inclusion into the growing assemblage of police surveillance technologies; how ICTs function to reproduce power relationships and contest visibility production from below; and how ‘policing’s new visibility’ shapes the normalization of surveillance-centric governmentalities for real and perceived risk avoidance and mitigation.

Graduation Semester

2022-05

Type of Resource

Thesis

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2022 Ajay Singh

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