Sudbury police adding new recruits, licence plate scanners

Now that the 2023 budget has been approved for Greater Sudbury police, work is underway to begin recruitment of new officers.

A key part of the budget increase was funding to hire 24 new cadets over the next three years.

The extra officers are needed because of added pressures on current staffing like mental health and wellness, said Chief Paul Pedersen.

But on top of that, he said there are new types of police business related to the opioid epidemic and human trafficking that require more investigations.

"The old business of people's garages still being broken into and wanting to see police presence in rural communities still exist," Pedersen said.

"So we're in that transition of trying to do old policing and new policing with the same resources. The only way of addressing some of this is through resources."

During Wednesday's police services board meeting, it was mentioned the first of the cadets will be hired this summer 

"The start of the hires: our aim is five for June and five for the September intake," chief administrative officer Sharon Baiden told the board.

The recruits will be trained at the Ontario Police College in southwestern Ontario.

"We're really running to the finish line right now to get those first five selected; who will be going away and then securing the September spots as well," she added.

Pedersen said it takes about 16 months from the point of hire for new cadets to be fully trained to work as a police officer.

Another soon-to-be added resource meant to help Sudbury officers is automated licence plate recognition (ALPR) technology.

The Greater Sudbury Police Service acquired a $612,433 grant from the province to help pay for the cameras and connecting software. 

Pedersen said this will allow the in-car cameras to be embedded in the dashboards of 31 cruisers. Four vehicles already have similar technology in them.

Those 31 cruisers represent half the police service's fleet.

The cameras can quickly scan licence plates to point out violations.

"The Ministry of Transportation database that exists for all of us, shows the registered owner of the vehicle, whether there's any warrants outstanding for that owner, and whether or not the vehicle is reported stolen," Pedersen explained.

Before this, officers had to either use their radios to get dispatch to check the licence plate or type it into their mobile data terminal (MDT) in their cruisers.

The data captured through the cameras will be uploaded to Greater Sudbury Police's digital evidence management system, to be used for analysis and possible court-related matters.

Baiden called this data evidence "critical" and that it could have "a seamless upload into our digital evidence platform."

Baiden added that once the body-worn cameras are deployed evidence will also be sent to the digital evidence management system.