Article Videos Don’t Lie: African Americans’ Support for Body-Worn Cameras Amanda Graham 1 , Hannah D. McManus 1 , Francis T. Cullen 1 , Velmer S. Burton, Jr. 2 , and Cheryl Lero Jonson 3 Abstract In light of growing concern regarding the policing of inner-city communities—including questionable incidents of use of force—equipping officers with body-worn cameras (BWCs) has emerged as a salient proposal for reform. Based on a national-level survey of African Americans (n ¼ 1,000), this project shows that wide consensus exists among Black citizens in favor of BWCs. Since ostensibly “videos don’t lie,” implementing camera technology thus may be a means to increase police legitimacy. Importantly, the analysis also reveals that African Americans support a broad range of reforms to improve inner-city policing, of which BWCs are only one. Finally, the survey included a subset of 45 Black police officers. These officers also supported BWCs and most other proposed reforms but at a level that was lower and less intense than African American members of the public. Keywords body-worn cameras, police reform, race and public opinion In the United States, police conflict with minority citizens has a long and disquieting history. As Butler (2017) notes, “There has never, not for one minute in American history, been peace between black people and the police” (p. 2). In recent decades, this conflict has been exacerbated by proactive policing tactics aimed at reducing both violent and drug-related crimes, as well as disorder in inner- city neighborhoods (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2018). Although evidence exists demonstrating the effectiveness of enforcement tactics such as broken windows policing, zero-tolerance policing, hot spots policing, and focused deterrence in reducing crime (Braga, Weisburd, & Turchan, 2018; Zimring, 2012; see also Weisburd & Braga, 2006), the wide- spread implementation of these strategies has come with a cost, borne disproportionately by com- munities of color. Thus, many innocent African Americans have been stopped by the police 1 University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA 2 University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock, AR, USA 3 Xavier University, Cincinnati, OH, USA Corresponding Author: Amanda Graham, School of Criminal Justice, University of Cincinnati, P.O. Box 210389, Cincinnati, OH 45221, USA. Email: grahama7@ucmail.uc.edu Criminal Justice Review 1-20 ª 2019 Georgia State University Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/0734016819846229 journals.sagepub.com/home/cjr