By Michelle MacAfee, The Associated Press
WINNIPEG (CP) -- Winnipeg police have a new weapon in their fight against prostitution -- a john-cam that captures video footage of hookers and customers that is later posted on a public website.
While police insist there are protections in place to guard against mistaken identity, critics say the unique pilot project is an invasion of privacy that likely won’t address the problem of prostitution in residential neighbourhoods.
Patrol Sgt. Kelly Dennison of the Winnipeg Police Service’s morals unit said Wednesday he’s confident Operation Snapshot will help discourage the kind of steady traffic that is frustrating residents and business operators.
“Our experience was that if the johns or people who fuel the sex trade realized they weren’t anonymous, that people were watching what they were doing, that they didn’t want that,” said Dennison.
But Dennison said police can only go so far in casting a light on the problem.
Faces and licence plates are blurred. A disclaimer states that not everyone who appears in the four short scenes currently on the site is a sex-trade worker or customer.
Dennison said the site will only feature scenes officers are confident depict transactions between hookers and johns -- not people stopping for directions or other apparent innocent activity.
In one 15-second scene, a woman dressed in a short skirt approaches the passenger window of a pale-coloured SUV. After a brief discussion, the woman gets in the vehicle and the driver takes off.
“We’re not putting clips on there that aren’t realistic,” said Dennison. “We’re not in the business of wrecking families; these johns can do that themselves.”
The website drew criticism from Manitoba’s privacy commissioner.
Barry Tuckett questioned whether cameras are justifiable, reasonable and effective when measured against the intrusion of privacy.
“My concern would be they’re not the panacea; they’re not the answer to crime,” said Tuckett.
“There are also some other values that have to be measured and that is the fundamental right people have to be left alone, to not have the state intruding into their lawful activities on the street.”
While Dennison says this project is the only one of its kind in Canada aimed at prostitution, the use of camera surveillance to curb crime has been hotly debated in several communities.
In Montreal, a bank of fixed surveillance cameras was installed earlier this year in the city’s Latin Quarter to monitor drug activity during the busy summer months.
A portable camera unit is rotated between several locations in Vernon, B.C., known to have high auto-crime rates.
Former federal privacy commissioner George Radwanski unsuccessfully fought RCMP in Kelowna, B.C., when they installed a camera in a downtown park. A second camera is now in operation on a temporary basis in the city’s nightclub zone. It’s scheduled to be deactivated in September.
For the Winnipeg project, police have the blessing of local business owners, who say they’re willing to try anything to keep customers from being hassled.
Trudy Turner, executive director of West End BIZ -- which represents 1,100 businesses -- said she hopes the website will be a “psychological discouragement” to johns.
Turner said anyone caught on the tape as an innocent passerby has no reason to be upset.
“If you don’t have a guilty conscience, what do you care if somebody asks you what you were doing on Ellice Avenue,” she said.