“Cover Your Ass”: Individual Accountability, Visual Documentation, and Everyday Policing in Miami

Abstract

In the context of police violence and the proliferation of cameras, a growing body of anthropological scholarship has sought to understand the role of photography and its relationship to everyday policing. While scholarly attention has been given to how cameras can intensify a racialized visuality of crime and justify violent policing practices, this article discusses how police officers themselves understand and use cameras in their daily work. Police officers can act as if they have a high level of impunity and a broad sense of righteousness, yet still feel that their work is surrounded by procedural and bureaucratic uncertainties. Based on extensive research with police departments in Miami, Florida, I discuss how police officers document their professionalism and integrity. When making sense of and navigating their societal role and the scrutiny that comes with it, US police officers use cameras to record themselves to capture visual and legal-looking actions of what they understand is exemplary of good policing. In the eyes and hands of police officers, cameras are used to document state violence and racialized policing as individual performances, highlighting officer accountability and misconduct while obscuring institutional responsibility.