WHEREAS the Province of British Columbia has legislated that all police forces in British Columbia use the same occurrence records management system, which has resulted in the implementation of a common system called the Police Records Information Management Environment PRIME; AND WHEREAS the operation of the PRIME system, throughout British Columbia, has resulted in the need for more support resources than anticipated: THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Union of BC Municipalities urge the Province of British Columbia to provide additional support resources to police forces in British Columbia for the operation of the PRIME system.
Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General The Province of British Columbia is the first jurisdiction in Canada to adopt a province-wide real-time police records management system RMS. The movement to a single, common RMS is the most significant policing program to be introduced in BC in at least 50 years. The system has contributed to the rapid arrests of suspects wanted on charges ranging from theft to criminal negligence causing death. Searches are successful based on as little information as a nickname or the description of a suspects tattoo. Funding for the system is provided by all levels of government. The Province has provided over 40-million for infrastructure and covered the majority of the implementation costs. In addition, the Province has picked up at least one years operating costs for PRIME-BC to give municipalities and cities financial relief in order to cover any overtime for training or computer upgrades. In the future, each detachment or department will share operating costs, which for a detachment or department of 100 officers will probably be less than the previous records management system. As of January 1, 2008, police detachmentsdepartments using PRIME-BC pay a 500 per officer user fee. Eventually they will pay a fee based on the actual cost of operating the system. This future fee is yet to be determined.