Christopher Schneider, a sociology professor at Brandon University who has studied body-worn cameras, said their use in North America, and particularly in the U.S., ramped up a decade ago after several incidents in which police were accused of using excessive, deadly force.

The West Vancouver police force says it has no immediate plans to introduce the cameras and is waiting to examine the results of other departments’ pilot programs.

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In the Vancouver Police trial, about 100 officers will participate, those patrolling an area from Stanley Park to the PNE grounds, as well as motorcycle officers in the traffic section.

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Police forces in B.C. are joining in a growing trend across North America, with the body cameras meant to respond to a call for more police accountability and transparency and a belief the cameras will reduce the use of force by police — and against police. They are in use in many places in Canada already, including Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, and Saskatoon.

Victoria Police, which has 240 officers, also wants to introduce the technology. The force has appealed to the province a recent decision by Victoria city council to reject the use of the cameras as a cost-cutting measure.

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The pilot program will get feedback from officers and the public, and measure the use of force by officers and the force used against them. The number of complaints against officers wearing the body cameras will also be tracked.

Port Moody Police, with 52 officers, has also said it plans to test the equipment this year. The Surrey Police Service, which will have more than 700 officers, has said it will use the cameras, likely introducing them when it officially takes over from the RCMP when a transition to the municipal force is complete in B.C.’s second-most-populous city.

“The evidence just does not support their use, especially because of the amount of money it costs taxpayers for the devices,” said Schneider.

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The City of Winnipeg, which has a similar sized police department as Vancouver, scrapped a body-worn camera program in 2017 because of cost. At the time, the equipment cost was estimated at $7 million and annual video storage and support staff at $4 million.

Within a few years, nearly 10,000 officers in the province — including more than 1,400 with the Vancouver Police — could be wearing the cameras.

He said the primary reason for having the body-worn cameras is to assist in knowing what happened — and also to assure the public there is as much transparency as possible.

Kash Heed, a former B.C. solicitor-general and a former West Vancouver police chief, supports the use of the cameras as key to countering problems with police accountability and says their introduction is overdue in B.C.

Two recent coroner’s inquests have also called for the use of the body cameras, including a recommendation from an inquest into the death of Miles Gray after a beating by Vancouver Police.

If the equipment testing is successful, the RCMP will then announce more about how the body cameras will be implemented nationally, RCMP spokeswoman Sgt. Kim Chamberland said in a written statement.

Heed, the former B.C. solicitor general, agrees the police should not control access to the video footage, but says these type of concerns can be mitigated with policies and practices at the police department level and from provincial oversight.

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The Vancouver Police Department’s long-awaited rollout of its body-worn camera program in January is the first step in an expected massive increase in the use of the technology in B.C.

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Schneider said despite the increasing use of the cameras, evidence on whether they reduce the use of force by and against police is inconclusive. There are studies where some reduction is seen, but others where use of force goes up, he said.

Those incidents included the shooting death in 2014 by police of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, that resulted in massive protests. Then-U.S. president Barack Obama announced the federal government would spend $75 million on body cameras as one of the measures in response to the shooting.

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Under the Police Act, the B.C. government has set mandatory standards for the use of body-worn cameras. Those include the cameras must be turned on when it is believed there will be use of force or where violent or aggressive behaviour is anticipated or displayed, and they must be kept on until the incident is concluded. The standards also outline the force must have procedures for processing freedom-of-information requests for video.

It is also a useful investigative tool for police, with the video footage providing “better documentation” the minute an officer gets out of a vehicle, said Heed.

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“If all goes well, full implementation can occur in 2025,” Vancouver Police Supt. Howard Tran told the police board at a meeting in the fall.

Vancouver’s pilot program has a budget of $307,000, but the police department did not have an immediate answer on the estimated cost of a full rollout.

The RCMP had planned to roll out body cameras across the country after testing Motorola equipment earlier this year. However the RCMP have decided to not use Motorola cameras and instead are now testing Axon equipment, the type being used by the Vancouver Police. The testing will begin this month for 10 weeks in Nova Scotia, Alberta and Iqaluit.

Body-worn cameras for police were introduced in the U.K in 2005. The relatively small video cameras are typically worn on the torso, attached to the officer’s uniform and are visible to the public.

Schneider said these inconclusive findings underscore the importance of the police not controlling access to the video footage and the need for access by the public.

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A study at George Mason University published in 2019 in the peer-reviewed journal Criminology and Public Policy surveyed 70 studies and found the body of research showed no consistent or statistically significant effects on areas such as office behaviour and perceptions, citizen behaviour and perceptions, and police investigations.

The independent office in 2020 called for the use of the body cameras, saying it will provide critical evidence in showing when police do something wrong and when they don’t.

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Ron MacDonald, the chief civilian director of the Independent Investigation Office, said his staff will have immediate access to body-worn camera video as B.C.’s law stipulate that police must co-operate with their investigations. That has already been happening with other types of video, including dash-camera footage from police vehicles and other video police might obtain, including from bystander cellphones and doorway cameras, said MacDonald.

Heed said from the public point of view, the cameras provide a measure of transparency and can help build trust, and it will also provide evidence to help either clear or implicate officers in use-of-force cases, he said.

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There are other concerns with body-worn cameras, including that it’s still up to the officers when to turn them on and, at least historically, the penalty for not turning on the camera is slight, he said.

Delta Police, which has 200 officers, already has used the video cameras in a limited fashion and is examining an expansion.

He said that most citizens carry with high-definition cameras in their cellphones and yet the police don’t carry cameras, which might suggest they are hiding something.

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Police oversight bodies need to have good access, with the best option being an independent third-party controlling the video footage with no police involvement, added Schneider, co-author of a 2019 book on the increasing use of technology in criminal justice.

The Vancouver Police procedures provide more detail on when the cameras must be turned on, including any contact with the public for the purpose of an investigation. The procedures also stipulate that in incidents where the Independent Investigation Office of B.C. is investigating police conduct, officers should not review any video records of the incident without permission from the Vancouver Police officer who liaises with the investigation office.

Police forces in B.C. are joining in a growing trend across North America, with the body cameras meant to respond to a call for more police accountability and transparency