Perceptions of Police Brutality: Does Audio Matter?

This research investigated whether the perceived level of force (categorized as justifiable force, moderate force, or excessive force) used by a law enforcement officer in effecting an arrest or detention changes depending on whether the audio track was present or removed from the arrest video. Participants were each shown 5 arrest videos with either the audio feed intact or removed. Participants were asked to indicate whether they felt the use of force depicted in the video was justified, moderate, or excessive. There was a significant association between audio presence or absence for 3 of 5 use of force videos. For 2 of 3 arrest videos with significant associations, participants perceived the violence as less severe when the audio track was removed. For the remaining video, removal of the audio track increased the percentage of participants who found the use of force to be excessive. The current data suggest that by removing the audio feed from arrest videos, the justifiability of use of force incidents can be manipulated. These data are an indication of the malleability of perceptions and judgments, and they serve to motivate future research in this area as we seek to understand, and thus tackle, the issue of police use of force incidents.