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Mike Waraich, manager of the Law Enforcement 2.0 LinkedIn group, has recently started a new podcast focused on the use of social media and web 2.0 technology in law enforcement. The penetration of web 2.0 tools and social media in law enforcement extends from community policing and outreach to recruitment, management, communication, and more. And use of these technologies in law enforcement is growing rapidly across the country.
In the inaugural podcast, Mike talks to Christa Miller, a contributor to The Crime Map, and Lauri Stevens, manager of ConnectedCOPS.net, about government use of social media and implementing social media in investigative processes. You can read more about he podcast here, subscribe to an RSS feed for the podcast here, or listen to the first podcast right now here.
Get on the crime map at CrimeReports.com
Most of us who are involved with social media at some point find ourselves on information overload. Links from Twitter and Facebook, Google Alerts, e-mail, RSS feed readers provide so much data that it’s tempting to close ourselves off and hide for at least a week.
However, even the most introverted of us are social creatures. The reason we came online to begin with was to find other people to relate to, build our own communities. We seek validation, security even. (Arguably, the familiarity we find is what leads us to post too much information.) We seek comfort.
What happens when we’re comfortable? The information becomes easier to manage. Just as our grandparents forged brand loyalty to a newspaper or TV news network, we associate with people who filter news in a way that resonates with us, with our own life circumstances—whose outlook based on experience mirrors ours.
With awareness comes cynicism
That’s why information isn’t just information. Just as importantly, it’s also opinions about the information. If TV brought new levels of awareness to previous generations, then social media brings new layers to those awareness levels. We now know not just a message; we also know what our friends think of the message from moment to moment.
The more people close ranks into comfortable, self-contained communities, then, the harder it is to get their attention. This is where master advertisers come in. They know how to manipulate emotion, play off people’s fears to inspire action.
They’d just better know which fears to get to, though, because all those messages have made the public more cynical than ever. Witness reaction to Hillary Clinton’s “3 a.m.” campaign ad: the return to Cold War-style paranoia did not win points.
We know which messages sound the same, which are designed to make us feel a certain way, especially when we don’t feel that way. We want to trust official messages less and less; for trustworthiness, we turn to each other. (This, incidentally, is how things “go viral.”)
How do communicators communicate?
This is the reason why so many organizations are jumping on Twitter and Facebook. It’s not just about finding another broadcast point; it’s about gaining access to people’s trusted networks, becoming part of their filtered information stream.
Yet communicators have a double-edged challenge: cut through the noise and cut through the comfort zone. Because not only does the sheer amount of information coming at us mean there’s no time to think critically; learning to build community to help us filter it means, in effect, we’re trusting other people to do our thinking for us.
And if we’re doing that, then your message about teen drinking and driving, domestic violence, or child pornography won’t get through. At this point, communication becomes an intricate dance:
- You must interact with the people whose stream you’re part of, provide consistently good information.
- Become trusted and trustworthy; people tune out shock value, but will tune into serious information once they trust you’re trying to help them solve problems, not just manipulating their fears. (Whether you can follow through should never even be a question.)
- Accepting that there will always be skeptics, you learn to work with the believers, trusting them to carry your message through to others.
Inspiring action
People operate under their own worldview within their own communities, both online and off. They attach stigma to domestic violence, child pornography, drug abuse, anything “other.”
And so when it comes to educating people about crime, law enforcement might succeed in some quarters; but getting people to do anything about it is quite another matter. The “call to action” involves asking them to think about what they are willing to do. And so perhaps social media’s true promise is in making it easier to change minds and hearts.
Social change happens when people face each other with uncomfortable truths and refuse to back down, not to manipulate, but because it’s about humans looking out for other humans. When a cop who’s entrenched in a cause s/he feels deeply about, it shows. In Toronto (Ontario), Sgt. Tim Burrows is passionate about traffic safety. Now-retired Sgt. Paul Gillespie is passionate about taking down child pornographers.
Look around your agency. Who’s passionate about gang violence? Domestic violence? Mental health intervention? Identity theft? What if they were able to take those passions online, get the public’s attention, get them to filter out all the noise and start thinking about how they could help each other?
You just might start to get some problems solved in your community.
Christa M. Miller is founder and co-author of Cops 2.0, http://cops2point0.com. As a freelance trade journalist turned public relations professional, she has specialized in public safety issues for the past eight years. She resides in Greenville, SC and can be reached at christammiller@gmail.com.
Get on the crime map at CrimeReports.com
Although law enforcement agencies across the nation are creating Facebook and Twitter accounts and signing up with Nixle, there are still many agencies who are resistant to the idea of adopting social media for community policing. Some are intimidated by creating a social media strategy from scratch; others are still skeptical of the “open” communication that social media creates and are afraid of losing control of their message and information.
Current Media
I recently had a conversation with a traditional—print—media journalist who informed me that social media still doesn’t have as large a reach as newspapers and broadcast news. In his mind, traditional forms of media are more effective law enforcement communication tools partly because they have a greater reach. Understandably, many law enforcement agencies look at circulation and traditional media’s reach and see no need to venture into the untested social media waters when only a fraction of their citizens are using the latest technologies.
However, only looking at current usage and reach leaves us blinded as to what will happen in the future. At a recent IACP 2009 presentation, Dr. Donald J. Loree, Center for Criminal Intelligence Research and Innovation, RCMP, pointed out that law enforcement agencies cannot remain static. In order to better anticipate the needs of the community, law enforcement agencies need to pay attention to shifting populations and demographics.
A Changing Demographic
Today, I read an interesting article on social media addiction. But my interest in the article has less to do with addiction, per se, and more to do with the age groups that are using social media on a regular basis. For example:
- 56% of those under 35 check Facebook 1-10 times a day, and 27% check it more than 10 times a day.
- 65% of those under 35 check Facebook at work, while only 29% of those over 35 checked it at work.
- 54% of those under 35 check Facebook on a desktop or laptop computer, but 81% of those over 35 did so.
- 46% of those under 35 checked Facebook on their phone, but only 19% of those over 35 did.
- Of those under 35 with a Twitter account, almost 40% checked it more than 10 times a day.
These statistics point to a large generational divide between “younger” and “older” social media users. Not only are younger users checking their social media accounts more often, but they are increasingly doing so on their phones and other mobile devices. Sure, the 45+ group might be the fastest growing demographic on Facebook, but they’re not using the site nearly as much as their younger counterparts.
Social Media is not a Fad
Some may say that Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms are just a fad. In fact, back in 2000, I talked with the owner of a local internet provider in south Texas who was of the opinion that the internet was just a fad and that it would soon “go the way of the ham radio” (true story!). But social media is not a fad. It is quickly becoming the main communication and information gathering tool for many people under 35. As that population ages, they will take these platforms and channels of communication with them.
Is your department simply providing what they need to provide at the moment, or is it looking to the future and beginning to use the media channels that your future citizens are already using?
Get on the crime map at CrimeReports.com
Just recently, LAwS Communications, web solutions for law enforcement, announced the first Social Media in Law Enforcement (SMILE) Conference. Now the official SMILE conference website is up and running with more details about the upcoming conference.
The conference will be held in Washington, DC, April 7-9, 2010 at the Washington Court Hotel on Capitol Hill. The conference will include workshops, plenary sessions, and a town hall-like meeting to discuss issues concerning social media and law enforcement.
Get information for submitting a presentation proposal, registration information, and an early conference schedule here: http://cooloftheweek.typepad.com/social_media_in_law_enfor/
Get on the crime map at CrimeReports.com
In a recent post titled, “Traditional Media Loses Grip on Local Crime Information,” I hypothesized that with the increase in law enforcement agencies providing citizens with direct access to crime data through Facebook, Twitter, CrimeReports, and other web tools the public may not need traditional media as a crime-reporting source anymore.
But I believe that the issue of direct data vs. traditional crime reporting is more complex than my simple conclusion seemed to express. The core of the debate is this:
If I (as a citizen) already have a direct feed of official crime data pertinent to my neighborhood through Twitter, CrimeReports, Facebook, etc., what would make me tune in to the nightly news or read the daily crime blotter in my local newspaper for crime information?
My first response is—nothing.
If I receive daily crime alerts from CrimeReports, and religiously check my local police department’s Facebook page, I would feel relatively informed about the crime situation in my neighborhood. But this does not mean that traditional media does not hold any value.
Context
First of all, print and broadcast media provide context to the data that law enforcement provides to citizens through these new web tools. As a citizen, I can track the handful of crimes that may happen in my neighborhood on a weekly basis, but I don’t know how my neighborhood fits into the bigger picture of crime across the city or the state. Traditional media has the time and resources to do the analysis and paint the bigger picture.
In addition, although many law enforcement agencies provide basic data through crime mapping and social media tools (i.e., Breaking and Entering, 9/5/09, 10:04pm). Traditional media has the ability to elaborate on those incidents (i.e., “Resident called 911 after hearing glass break. Neighbors report seeing a young woman in late teens or early twenties, fleeing the scene through the victim’s backyard,” etc.).
Contrast
Besides providing complex analysis that most citizens cannot or will not do on their own, traditional media can serve as a counter balance to the direct data coming from a law enforcement agency. Granted, most law enforcement agencies are more concerned with informing citizens than they are about providing a positive spin on the information they release, but traditional media can provide a different perspective on crime than one would get from just following the local PD on Twitter. And although newspapers and broadcast news are supported by advertising and have an incentive to increase readership/ratings, the perspective they provide can shed a different light on the data given out by local law enforcement agencies.
The Bigger Picture
Lastly, traditional media can offer a broader picture of crime than basic-level crime information. Although it has been my experience that most people are more directly concerned with crime on their block than they are with crime in the neighboring town, getting a broader picture of crime can also help raise awareness of trends in crime both locally and nationally. And awareness of broader crime trends is, as well, helpful in keeping citizens vigilant and safe.
A Difference in Scale
All-in-all, the main difference between using social media to get crime data and following traditional media for crime information is scale. CrimeReports and other crime mapping resources are very good at giving citizens a picture of crime in their neighborhood. Twitter and Facebook are excellent tools for local law enforcement to use to disseminate information and interact with a city, county, or town. But traditional media is probably the most useful for large-scale crime reporting.
Only one question remains: If citizens have a direct line to crime data on their street, will they still tune in to or read traditional forms of crime reporting to get the bigger picture? Since social media is only being used by a relatively small number of law enforcement agencies currently (although more are joining everyday), it’s too early to predict citizen’s reactions to these new information streams. My only hope is that citizens will access crime information on whatever level they feel comfortable so that they can stay informed and keep their neighborhoods safe through the greater vigilance that comes from increased access to crime information.
[Special thanks to an unnamed journalist for helping me tease out these ideas]
Get on the crime map at CrimeReports.com
In a story about the Boca Raton, Fla., Police Department’s use of Twitter, Nixle, and other social media to inform the public, Lynn University Professor, Jim Brosemer stated, “The police department has a certain point of view and of course they want to put their best face in front of the public.” Of course, he is insinuating that the police department, through this new technology, is able to bypass traditional media and present their interpretation of crime information directly to the public. Professor Brosemer adds, “That’s not necessarily a good thing.”
But whether or not the Boca Raton Police are “bypassing” traditional media or not, the fact of the matter remains that in the new world of social media, traditional news reporting may have less of an impact on crime information.
Reporting for Ratings
For many years, broadcast and print media were the gatekeepers of crime information. They chose what crimes to emphasize, and what to say about them. They chose which law enforcement issues to highlight and which ones to minimize. Some may say that the news media adage, “if it bleeds, it leads,” although cynical, represents what a number of Americans feel is traditional media’s attitude toward crime reporting. Unfortunately the type of reporting whose goal is sensationalism for the sake of ratings, or increased readership, is all about shock, fear, and criticism, not about a fair-handed and informative look at local crime.
Law Enforcement Talks Directly to the Public
But now that law enforcement has the tools to speak directly to the public, they have the ability to create a broader, more-comprehensive picture of local crime and crime trends. For example, since the Boca Raton Police started using Twitter and Nixle, they have stopped giving press releases to local media in advance. Now they send out press releases via social media and local news learns about them at the same time as all other citizens in the area. Using public-facing crime maps, like partnering with CrimeReports, also gives the public direct access to crime information. Instead of relying on the nightly news to tell citizens that there have a been a rash of break-ins, citizens can now look at the map themselves and determine if it truly is a “rash” or if it is really 4 break-ins in the last month, spread out across three townships.
Obviously, this level of access to crime information has never before been available to the public. The power to interpret crime data has now moved out of the hands of the traditional media gatekeepers and into the hands of citizens themselves. And, perhaps, that IS a good thing.
For more on this topic: Traditional Media Loses Grip on Local Crime Information, Pt. 2
Get on the map at CrimeReports.com
I received an email this morning from a reader who, contrary to previous articles posted here at The Crime Map, expressed that surveillance cameras DO, in fact, prevent crime. He added that cameras prevent crime by putting criminals behind bars, preventing them from re-offending.
Surveillance
Although it is certainly true that surveillance cameras, or CCTV, have helped catch criminals in the past (keeping them off the street), many citizens and lawmakers questions the overall effectiveness of a surveillance camera system. For example, a recent story published by the BBC stated that for every 1,000 cameras in London, only one criminal was caught with the technology last year. However, with over 1 million cameras, that still adds up to 1,000 criminals caught with the aid of CCTV. But, are 1,000 criminals worth the 500 million pounds spent on maintaining the cameras every year? The number spent on maintaining the system equates out to 500,000 British pounds per criminal caught last year, which converts to over $833,000 per criminal in US dollars.
In America, a system that spent $833,000 to catch one criminal would be deemed a huge waste of taxpayer money. Despite the fact that a significant amount of criminals are caught by surveillance cameras, the amount of resources it takes to install and maintain the technology far outweighs the comparatively small return.
Communication
But there might be better ways to put our tax dollars to work. Although the invention of cameras have allowed police to watch more of our neighborhoods from afar, and patrol cars have given police the ability to move faster and cover larger areas, police are less and less inclined to actually build relationships with members of the community. Lawrence Sherman, quoted in Peter Moskos’ book, Cop in the Hood: My Year Policing Baltimore’s Eastern District, says “The rise of telephone dispatch transformed both the method and purpose of patrol. Instead of watching to prevent crime, motorized police patrol became a process of merely waiting to respond to crime.”
It is the shift from active policing to passively waiting that has, perhaps, most damaged citizen’s relationship with law enforcement. It has put officers at arms length, out of sight, and out of mind. As a result, citizens see law enforcement as the specter that approaches when bad things happen (or the Big Brother who is watching them through a surveillance camera), not the partner that they interact with to prevent crime in their community. To prevent this Us vs. Them relationship between citizens and law enforcement, a communication shift needs to take place.
Already that shift is taking place through the rise of law enforcement agencies embracing social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, and CrimeReports. Although a neighborhood police officer may not be walking your street, they are slowly becoming more accessible online. These new communication tools give average citizens better access to crime data, information, and two-way communication, but they do not fully replace the advantages of foot patrol officers.
The Future Technology-Assisted, Community-based Law Enforcement Efforts
Just a few days ago, the Baltimore Police Department announced it would be issuing BlackBerries to all of its officers in the coming months, virtually making patrol-car-laptops obsolete overnight. With this new technology, officers have less reason to stay close to their patrol cars and have more freedom to move around on foot easier. Perhaps technology has brought us the next shift in law enforcement: a return to widespread neighborhood foot patrol officers, who leverage personal relationships in the community and online communication tools to prevent crime in their community.
Instead of reinforcing an Us vs. Them mentality through increased surveillance, maybe we should put more actual (instead of virtual) eyes in our neighborhoods to build relationships and foster community empowerment and responsibility through community-based relationships between citizens and law enforcement.
Get on the crime map at CrimeReports.com
Recently, in Atlanta, a couple posted a surveillance video on YouTube of three men burglarizing their home. Soon after, the three men were caught. It’s just one of the ways that social media is helping to decrease crime.
Social Media Increases Communication
The rise of web 2.0 and social media has enabled everyone to communicate faster and easier than ever before in the history of the planet. And these new communication tools are useful for more than just telling all your Facebook friends that you’re having spaghetti for dinner, they are having an impact on real-world situations, including crime.
Communication Decreases Crime
As little as 10 years ago, communicating with your local police department was a difficult, time-consuming process. Sure, citizens could read about crime in the weekly police blotter in the newspaper, or maybe hear about a handful of high-profile crimes on the local news, but to find out about crime in one’s own neighborhood required slogging down to the station, filling out paper work, and waiting. Likewise, police could do little to inform the public about crime in their area, save going door-to-door to tell everyone in the neighborhood what was going on.
Today, police and citizens have virtual two-way communication through web 2.0 technology like CrimeReports, Twitter, Facebook, or even text messaging. And as the avenues of communication increase, crime decreases. Eric Baumer, a criminologist at Florida State University in Tallahassee said, “It’s interesting in the sense that [crime has gone down] while the ability of citizens to surveil and connect to police” has gone up.
Citizens Want to Connect
When citizens have the ability to communicate and connect with their local law enforcement, they use it. If going down to the station to request crime reports was too time consuming in the past, now citizens can simply go to CrimeReports and see crime with a few clicks of a mouse or follow their local PD on Twitter.
With ease of communication comes more widespread adoption. Now that communication with law enforcement has become easier through web 2.0 tools, more people are tuning in, following, friending, and engaging in the conversation. And when more people are getting the information they need to keep themselves safe, more people are using that knowledge to protect themselves and prevent crime.
Get on the crime map at CrimeReports.com
The Columbus Dispatch recently ran a story about the Ohio State Patrol issuing strict guidelines for officers’ personal social media accounts. The guidelines come on the heels of a controversy surrounding a female officer posting sexually suggestive photos of herself on her MySpace page. Social media also recently had a hand in circulating a picture taken by Midland, TX, deputies of a scantily-clad waitress holding a police rifle—an incident that led to the firing of one officer and the suspension of four others. Is it any wonder that some law enforcement agencies are wary of endorsing the very media that publicizes their shortcomings?
But, even beyond photo sharing at the click of a button, it doesn’t take to long for anyone to find a video, blog post, or tweet that criticizes local law enforcement or openly publicizes law enforcement missteps and blunders. The fact of the matter is, social media not only opens up a great communication and outreach tool for law enforcement, it also opens up an agency to public criticism and vitriolic rants.
Rants and Personal Grudges
Many agencies want to create a web portal for open, public communication, but opening that portal comes with a whole host of problems. For instance, LEAs want the dialogue to be public, but they also don’t want it to degrade into rants by citizens with personal grudges. They already receive enough public criticism from local media, city councils, and everyday encounters with citizens, and they don’t want to open themselves up to more through a tool that is meant for community outreach and information.
Further, monitoring, editing, or deleting comments, on a Facebook wall or blog, can lead to community outcries of censorship. And a recent PR debacle by the Skittles Company illustrates the dangers of simply opening the gates of social media right on your front page.
Building Trust
Despite these potential pitfalls, opening a social media channel to the public shows great trust in the citizenry at large, and most citizens will respect that. What it all boils down to is trust. When a department shows trust in the community, the community shows trust in the department. Creating a Facebook page, blog, or twitter account sends a message to the public: We want to communicate with you and we care about your feedback. And when an agency sends a message like that, the public is more open to listening to and working with a department.
Simply publishing a public crime map, through a service like CrimeReports, shows citizens that their local police department trusts them with a large amount of crime data. In response, citizens use the information to protect themselves and their community, and are more open to working with law enforcement in their neighborhoods. Opening a two-way dialogue through other social media tools can further expand and enrich that trust, creating a safer community for citizens and a more law-enforcement-friendly public.
Get on the crime map at CrimeReports.com
Gov Tech just published an interview with California’s Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), Mark Weatherford, in which he elaborated on some of his plans for implementing IT security across the state. In regards to security concerns for government-based social networking, he said the following:
“We’re going to jump out in front of this and get something in place that allows state employees to use social networks. It’s going to be my job to figure out how we can safely and securely implement these technologies in state agencies because in a couple of years we’re not going to have this discussion anymore. This is going to happen. We just need to make sure we’re doing it properly.”
State governments are beginning to realize that social networking is not a fad, but represent a fundamental shift in the way that citizens communicate and interact with their government. Local government and law enforcement need to have a similar attitude: “This is going to happen. We just need to make sure we’re doing it properly.”
Using social media tools like Facebook and Twitter, or Web 2.0 tools like CrimeReports is the first step.
Source: http://www.govtech.com/gt/articles/717247?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=link
Get on the crime map at CrimeReports.com
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