(Trinidad Express) Police officers are reluctant to use body cameras because they have concerns. However, Insp Gideon Dickson, head of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service Social and Welfare Association, says he hopes education and training can bring about a positive change.
In response to queries at the Parliament’s Joint Select Committee (JSC) meeting on National Security on Wednesday, Police Commissioner Erla Christopher said police officers were not following instructions to wear the body cameras.
This prompted Government MP Keith Scotland, who chaired the JSC meeting, to advise the Commissioner to take action and discipline these officers.
In a telephone interview with the Express yesterday, Dickson said the body cameras are best practice globally but in Trinidad and Tobago, when there is something new, there is a level of hesitation.
He said officers also have concerns about the data from the cameras.
“There are still questions to be answered in terms of the storage of the information and the ability of the information to withstand judicial scrutiny. We have embarked upon training of our officers with the body-worn cameras and it will become part of our tool in training. It is a work in progress and whatever reservations we have at this point in time, probably it’s only because of the newness of the situation,” he said.
Dickson said, in Trinidad and Tobago, oftentimes following others is tried for improvement. However, he said sometimes there is not enough data and support mechanisms in place but it goes forward.
Culture, he said, does not change overnight and he believes in time, with education and training, there would be more support for the cameras.
‘Big stick’ approach
Dickson disagreed that taking disciplinary action and using a “big stick” approach to compel officers to use the cameras is the answer.
“What needs to be done is educating, empowering, training, re-certification and don’t just give it to everybody,” he said.
He said the police are yet to be briefed on how the camera footage will be used and whether legislation is put in place for it to be used in the courts.
Asked how he would respond to public criticism that some police officers would not want to wear the cameras because there are “criminal elements” in the service, Dickson said there is no data to suggest this.
The police organisation, he said, is a subset of the community.
He pointed out that the Police Service is the only entity where there are constant efforts to weed out “corrupt” officers as he noted there is the Professional Standards Bureau, the Anti-Corruption Investigations Bureau, a Police Complaints Authority and another independent agency.
Dickson said when an allegation is made, the police officer is still entitled to their day in court to answer.
He said he has not seen data to suggest that there is a level of convictions with respect to the corrupt officers that is consistent with talk about “corrupt elements” in the Police Service.
Said Dickson: “By and large, most of our officers are law-abiding and professional and I cannot see us not doing things or embracing things that would aid in our fight against criminal elements.”
‘A work in progress’: A body camera worn by a police officer.
