Editorial | Welcoming police bodycams

That the administration is finally about to acquire body-worn cameras for police officers, in sufficient numbers to make a difference to operational transparency, is a positive development.

But the 600 bodycams the government plans to buy over the next two months are not sufficient. That number should only be the start. All officers with front-facing operational duties in public spaces should, as a matter of policy, have to wear bodycams. Similar devices – dash cams – should also be installed on all police operational vehicles, especially those assigned to road traffic and anti-crime duties.

Further, as Hugh Faulkner, head of the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM), the agency that investigates police homicides and other complaints of abuse by the security forces suggests, bodycams should also be mandatory for soldiers who are part of operational teams with the police.

Prison officers, too, who are subject to INDECOM’s oversight, should be kitted out with the devices.

We would be surprised, if, as Mr Faulkner seems to imply, that was not the original intention. In which event, the shortcoming must be urgently rectified. The Jamaica Defence Force (JDF), after all, has become, over decades, an almost permanent fixture in Jamaica’s day-to-day policing operations, although, in those instances, its members operate subject to the authority of on-the-ground constables.

FRAUGHT ISSUE

Trust between Jamaica’s security forces, especially the constabulary, and citizens has been a fraught issue for decades. Police are often accused of abuse of power, especially the use of excessive force in confrontations with alleged criminals, which frequently lead to deaths, including a record 354 police killings in 1984.

However, since the advent of INDECOM a dozen years ago, homicides by the security forces have fallen, by 48 per cent between 2013 and 2022, to 134. Ninety per cent of the deaths were by police officers. Soldiers accounted for seven cases (five per cent).

The police and government officials, though, often argue that while the number of police homicides might seem extraordinary, it has to be viewed in the context of Jamaica’s high rate of crime, especially murders, and criminals who engage the police in gunfights.

Indeed, nearly 1,500 people are murdered in the island (1,498 in 2022) annually, for a homicide rate of over 50 per 100,000.

In recent remarks disclosing the planned acquisition of the 600 bodycams (there are nearly 12,000 members of the constabulary), the junior national security minister, Zavia Mayne, argued that they will help to put an end to “the duppy (ghost) stories” of police overreach.

Although the one-versus-the-other undertone of Mr Mayne’s statement was unfortunate, he was right about the potential of bodycams to help bring clarity to disputed events – assuming they are used and the authorities are fulsome in sharing the information they capture.

That is why it is surprising that the authorities were not more aggressive in acquiring and deploying bodycams since the former national security minister, Peter Bunting, first announced it as policy in 2014.

In 2016, the United States financed the purchase of 120 bodycams as part of a pilot of their use. There was no public accounting of the performance of the project, although it has dribbled out that the constabulary was unhappy with how the system provided by the Americans worked.

BODYCAM IMAGES

A year ago, Mr Faulkner complained that INDECOM has never been provided with bodycam images in any of the cases it investigated. He now hopes that this will change with the new acquisitions.

“We will also be emphasising to all the security force bodies that Section 11 of the INDECOM Act requires INDECOM to be ‘notified forthwith’ for any incident where there is death or injury and within 24 hours for any other matter,” Mr Faulkner said, “‘Forthwith’ means ‘without delay’. Our investigative steps are compromised if we are not notified of an incident in a timely manner.”

Mr Faulkner emphasised that point having disclosed that INDECOM was last year made aware of the presence of bodycam footage relating to an alleged assault against the police, which his agency has not been able to access. Further, it appeared that no bodycam was used in any of the cases of police homicides investigated by INDECOM.

Not surprisingly, Mr Faulkner called for the bodycams to be prioritised in specialised operations to arrest wanted people. It is during these operations that the greatest proportion of police killings occur.

Prior to 2015, operations of this type accounted for a third of annual police homicides, but dipped to about a quarter in 2016 and 2017, before slipping to the teens. They spiralled last year to 23 per cent.

A positive take-away, however, was his report that INDECOM and the police have been ironing out kinks in their working relationship, which presumably also means agreeing on protocols for INDECOM’s access of bodycam footage.

But, bodycams, generally, have to be activated by the people who wear them. The security chiefs, therefore, must ensure that they are not worn merely as decoration.