The Role of Social Media in Crime

The Role of Social Media in Crime

Introduction

Before studying the role of social media in crime, let's have a look over how it all did began, the first connection among the social media and the police of United Kingdom began in the year 2008, where some of the forces began experimenting. It all started at an unofficial level that was basically initiated by individual officers but then at different degrees it was used for official support the eventually ended up with sponsorship of “Association of Chief Police Officers”, before this the websites of the police just used Flickr and YouTube generally to publish photographs, videos and then many of them used Facebook. The trend is raising and the forces are also hosting meetings that are webcast, sometimes at once online or a physical location. There are about 1000 endorsed police twitters accounts, which are operating through the force recognized accounts that are approved by their senior officers.

The way Social Media is Used by the Police

Gathering intelligence, it was noticeable through the circumstances of London riots, and also to collect real time information about public regarding emergencies like floods or traffic accidents.

Distribution about local information, the department of the police are also capable of using their social networks to bring forward the links and messages to safeguard and inform the public.

Getting engaged with the local communities, by supporting the approach of the police to neighbourhood policing to deliver the community about interaction, policing, community etc that was developed to boost and reassure the confidence of public within the police.

Best practice and sharing knowledge with police organizations, basically with the help of POLKA that is “the Police Online Learning Knowledge Area that is presented by the “National Policing Improvement”.

United Kingdom Riots

One of the other prominent ...