Adding body cameras to police officers could solve several problems, but would not be the expected miracle in society.
This is one of the conclusions reached by Benoit Dupont, co-author of the book “The future of police work”, written as a result of research around the world.
Here in Quebec, the debate about adding cameras has resurfaced in the last few days due to the events that took place in Quebec where some videos circulated on social networks.
“What we found with the research census, particularly in the United States, is that surveillance cameras provided a number of solutions and reassured the police that they are not the only ones to be filmed , but that they can film interventions from start to finish and produce counter-evidence, ”said the author, in an interview with LCN.
However, the profession of police officer continues to change with the arrival of new technologies.
“Police organizations are finding that their work environment is changing, particularly under digital pressure and they wanted to try to understand how these changes could affect their work,” explained the expert.
According to this book, the police force is called upon to intervene more on behaviors considered inadequate on the web.
“Organizations are not well enough equipped to deal with these increasingly dematerialized risks of cybersecurity, cyberstalking and other forms of delinquent act that can be committed online”, underlined Mr. Dupont.
With the many additional tasks, the body camera will not be able to solve everything during interventions in the field.
“Unfortunately, that won’t be the miracle solution, but we recommend a certain adaptation to the use of this technology,” said the author.