A Study on the Perceptions of Police Body-Worn Camera: Focused on Perceived Ease of Use and Perceived Usefulness in South Korea

This study aims at investigating key factors that are associated with behavioral intention to use police body-worn camera. In particular, this study focuses on examining perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of police body-worn camera by conducting interviews toward nine police officers in South Korea. The applications of police body-worn camera has dramatically increased since 112 police hot-line report system was regarded as significant tool of enforcing law in the community. Few researches have been conducted to identify the relevant factors that are related the perception of police in terms of their perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness for the body-worn camera. This present study used qualitative research method which is based on grounded theory and attempted to focus on exploring perception of police body-worn camera by emphasizing key factors of the perception. Besides, this study conducted in-depth interviews toward nine police officers by utilizing the framework of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). Results showed that intention to use the body-worn camera was so prevalent that police think that the body-worn camera can be widely applied to the other criminal justice sectors. In this context, it is necessary to consider the new ways of improving high effectiveness body-worn camera. More importantly, perceived ease of use was more likely to be associated with the objective level of effectiveness of body-worn camera, while perceived usefulness of police was more prone to be related to psychological self-defense mechanism of police officers. Further policy implications will be discussed.