Watch the video above: Toronto Police Service seeks to arm officers with body-worn cameras. Mark Carcasole reports.
TORONTO – The head of Toronto’s police union wants more information about how lapel-worn cameras would be used by the city’s police force before they are worn by the approximately 5200 officers patrolling Toronto’s streets.
Police will soon implement a pilot-project among some of its members in the follow up to a 2013 report that recommended “body-worn” video cameras. It’s not known how many officers or in what divisions the cameras will be tested.
The project is still in the “preliminary stages” according to president of the Toronto Police Association Mike McCormack. He said there’s a wide range of issues from cost to data storage and privacy issues that have to be discussed before the union would agree to anything.
“We had roughly three million contacts with members of the public last year and if you’re recording those contacts, how much is it going to cost for the, first of all, physical recording devices, then storing that data, why do we store it, what’s it going to be used for,” he said in an interview Tuesday.
McCormack added that he was worried the cameras would be used to discipline the officers for menial offences like “swearing.”
“That’s not what they’re intended for,” he said.
But he did admit that where lapel cameras have been used it’s been “beneficial for the police officers” and has led to a reduction in complaints and a reduction in the use of force.
Indeed a California study found a 50 per cent drop in use of force complaints when officers were wearing lapel cameras. The study concluded the cameras made the officers more aware their actions were being watched and caused them to “increase their compliance to rules of conduct, especially around use of force.”
And in Rialto, California, where officers have been wearing cameras since 2012, complaints dropped 88 per cent in the first year.
Deputy Chief of the Toronto Police Service Peter Sloly agreed that police agencies where cameras have been implemented have seen positive results.
“They found that it affects the behaviour of the officer and the behaviour of the member of the community they’re dealing with,” he said.
“It protects [the officer] against malicious allegations, mischief making and it raises their performance. So it’s a win-win in general.”
Sloly said the cameras could be fully implemented by 2016 if the police service gets support and the money.
The idea for body-worn cameras came about in a report issued last year that recommended further utilizing technology, including lapel cameras, to improve “public trust and public safety and specifically we wanted to address the issue of bias in policing and eliminate racial profiling.”
How much would body-worn cameras cost?
There’s still no price tag on how much it would cost to equip all Toronto police officers with cameras. But it won’t be cheap.
The city of Spokane, Washington paid $730,000 in Sept. 2013 for 220 cameras, tasers and three years of data management.
The Los Angeles Police Department paid $1.3 million in January for 600 cameras, including maintenance costs for 2.5 years.
McCormack couldn’t give a firm number of how much the cameras will cost but estimated they would be between $500 and $1200 each. He also said there are approximately 5200 police officers, making the total cost of equipping each police officer between $2.6 million and $6.2 million.
And John Sewell, a member of the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition, raised the concern that police have not released any numbers for the pilot project or brought it before the Police Services Board.
“If a cop had a little camera on him taking a picture of all the interactions, it might be a good thing,” he said in an interview Tuesday. “Maybe it’s good, but I don’t know anything about it.”
– With files from Mark Carcasole
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