Police say body cams not worth the money
It’s a report by the police service, so reach for the salt: they say body cams on their officers are pretty useless and would cost $24 million a year, so they’re recommending against. Apparently cops have to activate the devices themselves, which suggests they wouldn’t exactly be an objective eye on police actions anyway.
david100 03:33 on 2019-01-30 Permalink
$24 million a year, if true, is a colossal waste of money. For far less than that, we could have cameras installed London-style every dozen meters. Why adopt these technologies best suited to lonely highway stops when most interactions with the police could be recorded off a building or dashboard?
Kate 07:38 on 2019-01-30 Permalink
Not everyone likes the full-time surveillance they have in London, david100.
Ephraim 09:32 on 2019-01-30 Permalink
Bodycam footage isn’t merely an expense, it lowers the cost of prosecution, it lowers attacks on the police, it calms situations, it helps improve policing. BUT what the Montreal police are fearing is video of their doing the wrong thing, of course we could just tell them to STOP doing the wrong thing…. but the reality is that the bodycam is there to ensure the integrity of the whole situation, including how both the policeman and the public are treated. The one thing it isn’t…. useless. And sorry, but you don’t have to activate it. In fact, there is a button to deactivate it… which brings up questions of WHY you did.
Marco 12:16 on 2019-01-30 Permalink
The Toronto Police Service did a pilot project with body cams and reached the opposite conclusion:
https://www.torontopolice.on.ca/media/text/20160915-body_worn_cameras_report.pdf