The Winnipeg Police Service spent $120,000 on video cameras that would track people being held at one police station but it shut the tracking system down after just five days, according to a CBC I-Team investigation.

An internal audit report, dated March 2010, criticizes the police service for not using the Prisoner Tracking System (PTS) it had bought and installed inside the East District police station before it opened in the fall of 2008.

The system uses closed-circuit digital video cameras to capture the movements of people who are being held in custody at the police station.

After weeks of testing, the police service began partially operating the Prisoner Tracking System at the East District station on Oct. 3, 2008, using just some of the 37 available cameras.

"However, all PTS recording was suspended on October 7, 2008, due to a number of issues and has never formally resumed," states the police audit report, which was obtained by CBC News through an access to information request.

"The reasons cited for suspending the program included an onerous disclosure requirement, concerns with image and sound quality, and the number of personnel required to compile recorded data."

The cameras remain operational but are not recording or used to track prisoners, said police Chief Keith McCaskill.

Costs too much, says police chief

While he is in favour of using prisoner tracking camera systems, McCaskill said the staff costs to operate the tracking system and log the video recordings are just too high.

"The technology isn't there right now to be able to do the things we want without an extraordinary amount of staff," McCaskill told CBC News.

The Prisoner Tracking System was installed inside the East District police station before it opened in 2008. (CBC)

"I think it's a really important thing to do prisoner tracking … and to be able to disclose that information, but not at the expense of having all those extra staff."

Various court decisions have urged the Winnipeg Police Service to record prisoners in custody. Doing so would protect the accused and the police officers involved, the court decisions have argued.

Tracking prisoners inside police stations — a standard practice in Toronto and Ottawa — protects prisoners from abuse and protects officers from false allegations, said Sean Dewart, an Ontario-based lawyer.

"The biggest single reason from management's point of view — if your service is composed largely of honest, hard-working officers — is that you're protecting them," Dewart said.

"So I must say, I was astonished to see the suggestion that this wasn't going to continue as standard practice in Winnipeg."

McCaskill said the police service is looking for new technologies that would reduce those costs. Once that technology has been identified, he said he would like to see it installed.