Body cameras now active at 2 N.L. detachments. The rest will have them by summer

RCMP officers are now wearing body cameras at two Newfoundland and Labrador detachments and there are plans to reach all officers by next June.

Both police and public safety experts calling the move a positive step forward.

Body cameras, which are being rolled out to Mounties across the country, are now in place for officers in Ferryland and Holyrood. 

"The main reasons for the camera, of course, is transparency, accountability and building public trust," Tracy Jenkins-Fudge, the RCMP's programs manager in Newfoundland and Labrador, told CBC Radio this week.

She said the rollout is going well and officers are responding positively.

"We'll have recordings of actually what is taking place to compliment members' testimony and of course their notes. So it's just like an additional piece of evidence, now, to help them in their investigation."

Cameras will be worn throughout an officer's day, Jenkins-Fudge said, and will be turned on prior to police arriving at a scene. Once they return to the station, the footage will be uploaded to a computer through a docking station, and the officer who recorded the footage and their supervisors are the only ones who have access to the footage.

Getting consent to record

Jenkins-Fudge said there are certain scenarios that rules around recording may differ — like in hospitals, homes or religious buildings — but it depends on the situation.

"Basically if they have to knock to come in and ask permission to come in, then they should also get consent to record," she said.

"There's going to be times in places such as hospitals where members have a subject in custody where they will still record, because it is pertinent of course to the investigation and to officer and public safety. So it's not that they can't record there, but it is looked at a little bit differently."

The RCMP have also taken steps to outline rules around privacy and how the footage is shared. Jenkins-Fudge said videos will be used as part of investigations, and would only be shared publicly through the media if helpful in cases of transparency or public trust.

In field testing prior to the rollout, Jenkins-Fudge said, officers saw the value of the cameras. They noted some situations were able to be de-escalated more quickly as people realized they were being recorded, she said.

Rose Ricciardelli, a criminology professor at Memorial University, said that while she doesn't believe the cameras will greatly affect people's behaviour once they become normalized, she sees them as an added layer of protection for all parties.

"It's really hard to know the truth about something. It's always based on people's interpretations of different events at different times. People interpret things in different ways, and [now] at least you have some footage that can explain, or at least show the documentation of what happens," she said in a recent interview. 

Ricciardelli said she'd like to see the cameras go beyond policing, especially in prisons.

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