Expanded Development of Body-Worn Camera Analytics for Community and Officer Safety is a project that aims to develop algorithms to automatically detect and predict use of force, as well as escalation and de-escalation in police officer-civilian interactions that are captured in Body-Worn Camera (BWC) footage data. This project is in collaboration with the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) and has been funded by Maryland Governor’s Office of Crime Prevention and Policy. The interdisciplinary research team consists of researchers from the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UMD and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The project end date is June 30, 2025.
The research assistantship involves up to 40 hours per week of working collaboratively within an interdisciplinary team. The duties of the research assistantship may include contributing to the following project activities:
- attending project meetings (virtual) and possibly observing BPD de-escalation training sessions (in person);
- conducting literature review on use of force, escalation and de-escalation; and
- writing the final report and a grant proposal to continue the research project.
If you have an interest in research on policing, police community relations, use of force, technology, this send Bianca Bersani (bbersani@umd.edu) an email ASAP (by Friday, May 23rd), with a short note about your interests, and a CV noting skillsets.