Social Networking as a Crimefighting Tool
Police departments around the nation are using social networking to make new connections with their communities. Is it the Next Big Thing in fighting crime? Complete details in The Crime Report.
It was one of the biggest drug busts in recent Baltimore history.
On April 4, the city’s drug task force swooped on a home in the northwest portion of the city, discovering a veritable garden of pot—400 marijuana plants sprouting from every room in the residence, with a street value of over $500,000. It was a by-the-book raid—except for one curious fact:
Hundreds of Baltimore citizens were following every step of the police action on Twitter.
“Crimes Impact Division conducting drug raid @ 5700 Pimlico Rd HAPPENING NOW,” officers wrote on the first of a flurry of Twitter feeds that went up. Tweets tracked the progress of officers as they rummaged for evidence. The next day, Baltimore cops Tweeted the arrest of a suspect.
Putting police action on cyberspace in real-time sounds like someone’s ultimate version of a reality show. But Baltimore police, who have been hooked on Twitter since March, consider it a valuable new tool for connecting with their community. “It’s where society is moving,” said Baltimore PD Public Affairs Director Anthony Guglielmi.
Baltimore cops are not alone. More than 50 police forces
around the country now use Twitter or similar online networks such as Facebook. Many, ranging from the small police department in Franklin, Mass. to big cities like Milwaukee, have only signed on within the past three or four months.Christa Miller, a Greenville, SC-based writer and marketing guru who researches law enforcement and social media activity on her blog and helps police develop web sites, hopes more will follow. According to Miller, police will miss out on a valuable opportunity to shape law enforcement strategies that are more attuned to community needs if they stay on the social media sidelines.
“(Whether) citizens on the web…are posting troubles about the city or writing daily occurrences about their life, the cops need to be there too,” she said.
But Twitter communities also have to be convinced that police are fully transparent. When a suspect bit a police officer’s arm in south Boston in late May, the news was out on Twitter within minutes. Tweets followed the progress of the incident, from the arrest of the attacker to the hospital where the uniformed victim was being treated. Some in the cyber-audience wondered whether cops would be as open if the victim had not been one of their own.
“If that was a zombie bite, would you tell us?” one Tweeted.
“Yes, absolutely,” police posted back, not missing a beat.
The playful reply struck a chord across the Boston blogosphere—and appeared to convince the skeptics. The Boston police Twitter service signed up an additional 1,500 followers soon after the “zombie” call-and-response—bringing the total number of subscribers to more than 4,000, according to Sgt. James Meredith, who oversees the Twitter account for the Boston police.
Meredith, an 18-year veteran of the Boston force, concedes that most people who signed up may have been attracted by the entertainment value, but “that’s fine with me.” Whatever gets the public through the door will help police provide a better service to their communities, Meredith said. Now, if Boston PD needs the public’s help to locate a suspect, for example, they can count on a large number of potential helpers from their built-in Twitter audience. “[The zombie bite exchange] showed that there’s a different side to the police department.”
The art of the soft-sell (others might call it “bait-and-switch”) is familiar to anyone who studies E-commerce, and it could offer a lesson in improving police-community relations around the nation.
So what accounts for the lingering resistance? It’s not a budget issue, said former Reno, Nevada
policeman Todd Shipley, who terms the cost of involvement with social networking “minimal” for most police departments. According to Shipley,who launched the Reno police cybercrime unit, local law enforcement agencies have historically been slow to use new technology. As a consequence, he said, U.S. cops are “behind the learning curve, and the criminals way ahead.”Shipley is now the chief executive officer of Reno-based Vere Software, a company that aims to alter the way police use the Internet through training and software to help with web-initiated investigations. He concedes that social networking clashes with the conservative streak in most law enforcement agencies. And, he adds, it is personal, not just institutional.
“Cops are pretty secretive with their personal lives,” said Shipley. “Most in law enforcement have caller ID block, an unlisted phone number and try to get their home address and information removed from search engines. So opening up online puts you in a precarious situation.”
Police management isn’t helping matters. According to Shipley, law enforcement higher-ups are increasingly tracking officers’ personal sites and blogs and punishing them for the content. “The more agencies, during their hiring practices and post employment, look at the Internet as a source of information about officers’ lives outside of work, the more officers will fear posting,” he said. “Those officers who can post or Tweet about non-work related things will be fine with the technology.”
Complete story on The Crime Report.
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