Cameras coming to Sault Ste. Marie to help solve crimes, find missing persons

Surveillance cameras that are used to both deter crimes and help investigations will soon be installed throughout Sault Ste. Marie.

The police service has chosen areas such as high-traffic intersections and areas where they most frequently receive calls for service.

Surveillance cameras that are used to both deter crimes and help investigations will soon be installed throughout Sault Ste. Marie. (Photo from video)

For the last 18 months, the Sault Police Service has been working on bringing CCTV cameras to the city and Prince Township.

It’s a tool that has become common in many communities across the world, including here in the north. In the Sault., police have chosen 30 areas for the surveillance cameras.

"We've placed our cameras around the city based on, basically data," said police Chief Hugh Stevenson.

"Where we know that there's a high probability of missing persons, whether it's around an old age home or different, locations in the downtown core."

Police said the cameras will help with a range of investigations, whether its break-ins, hit-and-runs, abductions or missing persons.

"From dealing with the victims of a lost a loved one, when they know that you have the capability to have eyes and ears across the city that are likely to be frequented by missing persons, that grabs a whole pile of confidence and a little assertion that this is going to work out well in the end," Stevenson said.

Signs will be posted to let the public know the area is under video surveillance. The project costs $300,000, split equally between the police service and the province.

Stevenson wants to make clear the cameras will only be used in times that they could help an active investigation.

"When an incident becomes known to us that we require that level surveillance, that's when they'll be" used, he said.

"And again, we've done it within the Privacy Commission envelope in terms of who has access to the information."

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Installation of the new CCTV cameras will occur in the next two or three weeks. Stevenson said the few staff able to access the data are nearly all trained and will be ready before the cameras come online.