Report Calls on Province to Move to Police Body Cameras
Prince George, B.C.- The Special Committee that has been reviewing the Independent Investigations Office has made 7 recommendations to improve the operations.
Among the recommendations is a call for the Province to “aggressively pursue the steps necessary to implement the police use of body worn cameras.” The Committee says moving in this direction would be of great assistance to the police and the IIO should the Independent Investigations Office be called to examine an incident.
The other 6 recommendations focus on the make up and function of the IIO, calling for continued support towards the IIO being a civilian run office, although the report admits it will take longer to achieve that goal than first thought.
The committee also recommends that in “exceptional cases” the Chief Civilian Director have the discretion to appoint investigators who were former police officers in B.C. or other jurisdictions within the past five years in order to provide special expertise and that if such an appointment is made, that the Ministry of Justice be notified and given justification for such an appointment. As it stands now, investigators must have been out of the law enforcement business for at least 5 years if they want to join the IIO in order to reduce the possibility of police investigating police.
There are two recommendations dealing with human resources practices at the IIO following reports of tensions between administration and investigators. The first calls for the Ministry of Justice to ” continue to closely review human resources practices at the IIO in order to ensure the effectiveness of its operations and compositional mandate”. The second calls on the Ministry of Justice to publicly report within a year on actions that have been taken to address the human resources issues at the IIO.
Comments
I for one don’t understand why body cams haven’t been more widespread in Canadian police forces before now it’s like dash cams took forever to get police to accept them in Canada. Body cams are a proven tool and has enormous potential I am not worried about privacy if it means safer streets and honest cops it’s a small price to pay for being on video
You can download the report here.
There’s no more information about what the human resources issues are in the body of the report than in the summary of the recommendations. The report is very coy about this topic. I wonder what the problem is.
If I were a cop I would have one as soon as possible, body cam best thing since apple pie…
Well as we all now have cams on our phones .. They may as well too. It will help both them and us when it comes to information about what happened at anytime. If I was a cop I would want one.. Would help cover thy butt against charges of harassment, racism or sexual misconduct.
Our world is becoming less private everyday .. More and more cameras on street corners etc.. Big brother is watching more and more.. Pick your nose in public and you could make the news or be on you tube..lol. Every ship of your bank card shows your buying habits, same with your save on card.. No such thing as private life anymore.
I fully agree PVal. But, let’s go even further. Let’s put cameras in every classroom so we can determine for sure if that teacher was inappropriate with a student or not, if that teacher was verbally abusive or not. If it’s true that teacher just reads from the textbook and doesn’t actually teach anything. I’ll bet the BCTF would blow a gasket at that proposal – but, serious allegations are made against teachers, and this would certainly clear them up.
I suspect the police have mixed feelings. Very few people like being watched while they do their job, and having every moment recorded, wow. I think part of the problem is the police don’t want them. Their job is such a fluid situation and just the act of being recorded will change how they do it. They’ll likely become very robotic, following the letter of the law, and using zero discretion, because they never know when a deviation will cause them grief. After awhile, the stress of being constantly observed, will likely see their ranks dwindle. The big issue here, is the police have managed to do such a poor job of policing themselves, the public no longer believes them, and this is becoming a necessary evil. Had the police being willing to root out their own bad apples, instead of protecting them, it might be a different conversation today.
Ski51, lets even it out, we can see if a student or students are inappropriate, abusive or not, etc etc.. Kids all aren’t angels you know.. Some are down right ignorant and rude.. Bet some parents wouldn’t want cameras in the rooms either.
Video doesn’t lie..people do.
Good idea, far to many manipulating people out there these days. Can’t defend yourself old school anymore even though it proved to be effective in a hierarchy sense. People have become instigating self centered babies riding the squeaky wheel.
This could work well for either side. Depends on who needs the video.There is always three sides to any story,your side, their side , and the truth.
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