How Social Media Is Changing Law Enforcement

About This Report

This written report is based on the activities of the Digital Communities plan, a network of public- and private-sector Information technology professionals who are working to meliorate local governments' delivery of public service through the utilise of digital technology. The program — a partnership between Government Technology and east.Republic's Center for Digital Regime — consists of chore forces that meet online and in person to exchange data on important issues local government IT professionals face.

More than i,000 government and manufacture members participate in Digital Communities task forces focused on digital infrastructure, police force enforcement and large city/canton leadership. The Digital Communities program also conducts the annual Digital Cities and Digital Counties surveys, which track technology trends and identify and promote best practices in local government.

Digital Communities quarterly reports appear in Authorities Technology magazine in March, June, September and December.

Introduction

There's a scene in the 1990 moving-picture show Dances With Wolves in which Kevin Costner's grapheme Lt. Dunbar is traveling with a teamster past horse and wagon to his new post on the Western frontier. They come across a skeleton lying in the grass — an arrow sticking upwardly through its ribs — and the teamster says, "Somebody back East is sayin' 'why don't he write?'"

Today, public safety is a bit more sophisticated, and methods of communication much faster. Police enforcement tools have evolved from wanted posters to police radio, patrol cars and social networks, such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Community policing today has also expanded through social networking to locate missing children, alert neighbors of suspicious activity and fifty-fifty inform the public about crimes committed in their neighborhoods.

Just social networking is a tool that cuts both ways. Flash mobs organized online in Philadelphia swarmed stores to shoplift and set on pedestrians; pedophiles use social networking platforms to share photos and video; and terrorists recruit members and plan attacks via these tools.

Even the courts have been afflicted. Jurors have disregarded instructions and have conducted online research, shared their opinions on Twitter from the jury box, and even posted biased comments on their Facebook pages.

In Albuquerque, Due north.M., a police officer discredited both himself and his department by list his occupation on Facebook as "human waste material disposal." And in a number of high-profile cases, officers have found their deportment posted on YouTube and the bailiwick of hundreds or fifty-fifty thousands of negative comments.

From a 140-character tweet to a 56 MB video clip, social networking is a force that cannot be denied or ignored. We hope this special section will aid law enforcement in embracing and understanding this phenomenon.

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On the tenth anniversary of ix/xi, Americans were reminded over again that police force enforcement is engaged in an escalating war of new threats, weapons and technologies. It'south a war in which perpetrators can recruit, organize and program electronically beyond the achieve of traditional policing methods. Communication is mobile, motivation may be mass devastation and targets include the innocent. As police force enforcement agencies grapple with this new reality, they inevitably run across social media and social networks.

In August, for instance, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter announced an expanded curfew for minors following flash mob violence. Flash mobs — organized online through various social media — convene at a predetermined time and place for a specific purpose. Though many are harmless or simply pranks, in Philadelphia, the purpose was to rob pedestrians and then swarm through stores shoplifting.

In San Francisco, following a shooting by transit police force, protests were organized online in an attempt to block Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) stations. In perhaps an sick-considered response, BART shut downwards wireless service in the subway to disrupt organizers, which outraged protesters and created yet more trouble.

But social media is having a positive impact, too. The platforms can be used by police force enforcement to broaden intelligence gathering and leverage public support. "We had a very clear example of the importance of that this summer," said Sgt. Sean Whitcomb of the Seattle Police Section, "when a person became enlightened of a plot to kill soldiers and civilians at a war machine processing center with automatic weapons and grenades."

The Fort-Hood-mode plot involved several individuals who were planning a big-calibration massacre, said Whitcomb. "Someone came forrad and talked to one of our detectives. We got a joint terrorism job force involved and worked with the feds. The two suspects were arrested, and no one was injure."

Social networking speedily has become a valuable intelligence-gathering tool for law enforcement agencies, too as a source of testify for defense and prosecution personnel who search Facebook pages, Twitter feeds or YouTube videos seeking to ignominy witnesses, establish law enforcement bias, rail down show or plant associations betwixt gang members. Oftentimes, perpetrators brag near their crimes on social networks, and kid pornographers and sexual predators have been located and apprehended every bit a consequence of their online activities.

Mistrials also have occurred because jurors have overlooked instructions and researched cases online, used Twitter to share their opinions from the jury box, or accept posted biased comments on their Facebook pages. For case, in tardily 2010 during the Chandra Levy murder trial, a prospective juror was dismissed for using Twitter to discuss the case. And in another example, a juror in California was discovered blogging details of a murder example during the trial.

Although social media tin can assist enlist public support, it likewise can plough on a dime and do the contrary, due in part to the casual nature of the media. In a wake-upward call for law enforcement, an Albuquerque, Northward.1000., police force officer involved in an on-duty shooting brought discredit to himself and his section when reporters discovered that he listed his occupation as "man waste disposal" on a Facebook profile. And in several high-profile cases, officers' actions accept been posted on YouTube, receiving hundreds or even thousands of negative comments.

Boston law tried to end the public from videotaping officers under the country's wiretapping act, and arrested an attorney for recording officers with his cellphone. In that example — Glik v. Cunniffe — the 1st U.Southward. Circuit Courtroom of Appeals ruled that such videotaping is a complimentary speech right protected under the First Subpoena. Mobile devices and social media bring football's instant replay capability to law enforcement and to thousands of armchair quarterbacks effectually the world. It's as well important to remember that aught on social media e'er goes away.

Law enforcement agencies around the country may run across social media equally a double-edged sword, but it'due south here to stay and must be placed in the tool belts of officers and departments.

According to Dunwoody, Ga., Police Chief Baton Grogan, embracing social media is one of the smartest decisions constabulary enforcement can make today. In an article written for the International Association of Chiefs of Law, Grogan outlined 3 reasons for this: Social networks offer a natural platform for extending community policing efforts. They provide a way for departments to promote positive accomplishments. And finally, the continuing popularity of these networks just makes them hard to ignore.

"The demand is there. The people are there," Grogan wrote. "Why aren't you and your section?"

Investigations: The Skillful

Lt. Charles L. Cohen of the Indiana State Police has been training state and local police agencies on social media usage since 2002. He said that while criminals are using mobile devices to hide their activities, social media offers huge benefits to police enforcement.

"Investigative targets are putting a lot more information voluntarily online," said Cohen. "It's readily available and helps us paint a truthful and accurate picture of what individuals are doing."

For example, pertinent information can be learned if a member of a criminal arrangement attends a family unit reunion and so a video of information technology is uploaded to YouTube. "That helps investigators put faces with street names and put people in clan with others, when you ordinarily wouldn't exist able to do that," Cohen said. "Even five years ago, if you wanted to testify an association between 2 people, you had to do surveillance. Now you can merely go to blogs, video or paradigm sharing sites, and in many cases, find those pictures."

Images on social media sites likewise ofttimes yield other information of interest to the investigator. Photo background information was used terminal yr to find a kid pornographer and his victim, Cohen said. Metadata and geotagging of images can help locate where and when photos were taken.

And it's not just social media that's providing easily bachelor information. Investigators too can go aid from government websites, which now provide large amounts of data online. "About assessors' offices [and] near canton recorders put information on the Net about your firm," Cohen said. "You tin can notice out online where I bought my house, when, from whom and how much I paid for information technology. You can find out who my neighbors are, what my neighbors do for a living — all this information is bachelor."

Whitcomb explained that checking social networks for information is at present routine investigative piece of work. "Let's say nosotros become a name of a possible suspect in a shooting, would I expect to see if that person had a Twitter or Facebook account? Of course I would. It'southward but detectives doing proficient detective work. You demand a warrant to go where the public tin't go. Merely if you tin can catch information technology online, yous're skilful to go. Information technology'south like electronic canvassing — no different from going out door-to-door maxim, 'Did you lot see or hear annihilation?'"

Mike Edwards, a special assignments lieutenant with the Seattle Police Department's Criminal Investigations Bureau, said criminals sometimes call up they are anonymous online. "There was a prolific motorcycle thief," he said. "Nosotros found out he had a Facebook page, and he would post photos of himself on the stolen motorcycles. With that evidence, we were able to become a confidence. Some of them he took to chop shops, and we were able to arrest folks in the chop shops as well. And then that was purely a social media tool."

Edwards, a 31-year police force veteran, said some cases lean heavily on social networking. Some other example included a blog post that had references to social media and chat rooms, which detectives adamant were beingness used by a pimp. "We were able to secure the arrest and recover two juvenile prostitutes and reunite them with their families."

An investigation now, said Edwards, "covers the gamut, from your Craigslist-type postings where it'southward seller-to-seller with fraud going on, all the way to an individual who is using social media to share specific criminal knowledge or evidence with other individuals because they're and then darn proud of what they're doing."

Seattle police also utilise social media for early warnings about events that tin can bear upon public safety. For instance, city leaders monitored social networks on the proposed Sept. 17 "Twenty-four hours of Rage," which fortunately didn't amount to much.

"We want to make sure we've got enough staff to ensure that people who demonstrate tin can do so safely, that traffic can move, and that public safety is achieved," Whitcomb said. "So that's only proper planning."

Investigations: The Bad

Simply social networking tools are also increasingly used by criminals, and that can make police work more than hard. The case of Philadelphia's flash mob problem highlights how social media tin can exist used confronting the public good.

Criminals using small mobile devices can create havoc, Edwards said. "Everything from sending out viruses and accessing protected sites, sending faux IDs — all that can be washed at the speed of fingertips, where in the past it took a lot more time and endeavour. And the footprint left behind is so much smaller now," he said. "In the past it was hard to get rid of prove, only it'due south extremely easy to get rid of it at present, and a lot more hard to get and uncover information technology, so our investigative speed has had to increment to match this. The resources that we've had to draw on accept also expanded dramatically, because the number of sources is so many."

The biggest problem for local police enforcement has to practice with obtaining and retaining social media records, said Indiana's Cohen. "I see this video of a gang fight or a guy holding a sawed-off shotgun. Merely how do I download the video and then that I tin accept it into courtroom a year from at present, knowing information technology might go abroad the minute I refresh my browser?" Cohen said officers or investigators must exist able to obtain the records and understand them well enough to establish that the video was uploaded from a house or mobile device owned by the suspect, for example.

Some other trouble is that even though a criminal may be using Twitter or Facebook in a police section'south jurisdiction, the company operating the platform may exist based in some other metropolis or even a unlike state. In the past, a police officeholder investigating a crime could get to the phone company'southward local office or the local banking company co-operative to obtain records. "Just if I'1000 using voice over IP to communicate, there may be no physical presence in a local jurisdiction, or fifty-fifty in the The states," Cohen said. "Skype for instance, is incorporated in Luxembourg. And if somebody is communicating via Facebook, that means, as an Indiana police officer, I need to serve a search warrant on a California company — with no storefront or physical location where I can go."

Cohen said 80 to 90 percent of U.S. police agencies have fewer than l sworn officers, and securing records for a company outside the Us tin involve the U.S. Country Section, international treaty issues, embassies and other complexities that are very difficult for a small section to navigate.

The vast amount of information on the Cyberspace, along with the organizing ability of social media, also tin can get in easier for criminals to succeed.

"In the by, the knowledge of how to commit a crime — a break-in or how to crack a safe — you had some specialists and another people who weren't all that proficient at information technology," Edwards said. Today, criminals can find instructions online — or even be prodded to join an result like a wink mob through a mail on a social media platform. "The force multiplier of the number of people who could exercise these things is dramatic," he said.

And finally, law enforcement personnel must beware of what they put on their ain pages, said Kara Owens of the Minnesota Department of Public Condom (DPS). "I talk to the new troopers and tell them not to say where they work. ... If you typed 'Minneapolis Police force' [into a social media site] and a bunch of law officers showed up with their pages and family unit photos with information on where they alive then forth, that would exist a danger to the officer." In addition, an officer who posts photos from a GPS-enabled smartphone can unknowingly reveal the location of his or her home or function to a criminal with the right software.

Informing the Public

In August, as Philadelphia officials were coping with flash mobs, the Digital Communities program traveled to that metropolis for a meeting of its Law Enforcement Data Technology Job Forcefulness, which was held in conjunction with the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials conference. Amongst the attendees was Seattle Chief Engineering science Officeholder Pecker Schrier, a task force member, who showed off a new iPhone application that lets citizens track 911 calls in the metropolis. But that, it turns out, is just the tip of the iceberg. Seattle's use of social media provides a study of how innovation can be used for the benefit of police force enforcement and community.

For instance, the city's website includes an interactive map showing 911 incident responses, police reports and crime statistics.

"Fire 911 calls accept been public since 2002, but the mapping of them happened most three years ago," Schrier said, adding that the city delays posting police 911 calls for several hours to keep citizens from showing upwardly during dangerous incidents.

The city also reconciles reports from 911 calls with information from the scene before posting the information, since initial reports tin can vary widely from what officers actually discover when they testify upward. "For example," he said, "a citizen may call in and say, 'There'south drug dealing going on on my corner,' and it turns out there are teenagers hanging around smoking cigarettes and talking loudly — there isn't really a drug bargain going on. Or a burglar alarm is going off, but what happened is a car crashed into the edifice and set off the alarm. So it'due south really an injury blow."

Police reports posted to the site are redacted and usually appear 24 to 48 hours after an incident. "I think that's unique, I don't know if there are that many places in the United States that put redacted police force reports online for everyone to see," Schrier said.

Posting police reports online is, in part, a reaction to the changing nature of the news media. Upwards until a few years ago, city police dealt with a handful of newspapers and television receiver and radio stations. Reporters would monitor radio acceleration activity — or police spokespeople would contact news outlets when a major incident occurred — and pick upward newspaper copies of police reports at the station. But an explosion of neighborhood bloggers and other online media fabricated providing newspaper reports a burden for metropolis police.

In response, Seattle began called-for reports onto DVDs, simply that was a lot of trouble too. Putting reports online solved the problem. "That way the media has information technology and everyone else who's interested has it as well," said Schrier. "If you need an unredacted version — like if yous were in a car blow — then you could come downtown and become the unredacted version."

The online incident maps also support the city'south 1,200 registered "block-watchers," who are small groups of people in neighborhoods who work together to keep themselves safe and monitor crime and other goings-on. The 911 mapping is a way to assist them and likewise encourage them to contribute information to law enforcement.

"They can have data from the final few days about what's going on in their neighborhood, and they tin take appropriate action. And then information technology puts more tools in the hands of citizens," Schrier said, adding that posting the information also reduces police workload. "Instead of calling 911 for suspicious activities, block-watchers would immediately know if it was suspicious or not because they've been sharing information online."

Backside Seattle'due south social media activities is a sophisticated records management organisation that serves a multitude of purposes.

"The fire 911 calls come straight from the computer-aided acceleration organization for burn down," Schrier said. "Typically a call volition show upwards on the website in one to three minutes. So I tell people, 'You run across a fire apparatus go by your house, go to the website, and chances are good that it will already be on the website.'"

That feature required applied science. Schrier said the city spent about $250,000 for its information dissemination arrangement, which feeds an internal Police Department database that'south used from crime analysis. Information technology as well automatically creates redacted police study data that populates the public website and is used by various city departments. In addition, the system shares police data with the city's Police force Section, which prosecutes cases, and the municipal courtroom.

As Seattle's experience shows, social media can exist an of import component of community policing. That'due south also truthful in the relatively pocket-sized town of Dunwoody, population 47,000, where Chief Grogan said social media is an enhancement to its efforts. "Community policing is manpower-intensive to some degree, because people have meetings and you lot have to send somebody to them," he said. "We still practice those sorts of things, simply you can reach far more people through social media than y'all could ever reach past attending meetings."

Seattle'due south Whitcomb said that to exist truly effective, community policing must go where the public goes. And these days that ways social networks. The police section routinely distributes information most crimes under investigation — including pictures and license plate numbers — via social media.

"We make appeals regularly for witnesses to come forward through Twitter and our web log. And so broadly, nosotros do enlist social media to assist solve cases," Whitcomb said. "Years ago we would send out news releases, we'd concord press conferences — nowadays we tin can featherbed all that. We merely put information technology on our website, then achieve out on popular social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. We believe we're hit a bigger audience."

Some customs policing initiatives take been started by the citizens they serve. For case, when software company owners Keli and Robert Wilson lost track of their children at a large California amusement park for 45 minutes, the experience spurred an idea.

"I realized I didn't accept an updated photo of them, then I couldn't become upward to security and say, 'Hither they are. Delight go and await for them,'" said Keli Wilson. The Wilsons adult My Family unit, an online repository of information about children that contains a contempo photo, their height and weight and other information. If a child is lost, law enforcement can get immediate online admission to current information even if the family is far from home. From that evolved AlertID, a comprehensive public prophylactic service that launched in Washoe County, Nev., in 2010.

"Nosotros were approached by Washoe County Sheriff Mike Haley," Keli Wilson said. "And so we've get a sort of neighborhood watch on steroids."

According to Keli Wilson, residents of a participating jurisdiction sign up and provide an address. The AlertID application shows crimes that occur within a three-mile radius of their location as icons on a map. "They also become text and email alerts when something happens," she said. "For instance, if in that location'due south a residential burglary or a sex activity offender moves into their neighborhood.

"Another part of it is a social networking component we telephone call Community Watch, where the public tin use social networking to communicate with one another — for example, about a suspicious vehicle in their neighborhood, a solicitor or an attempted abduction. We also give police enforcement the ability to broadcast, for case, a missing elderly person, a school lockdown, a shooting, etc."

AlertID includes a mobile phone app, so that users tin can admission data and receive alerts and other information when they're on the move or away from dwelling.

Washoe County Commissioner Bonnie Weber said AlertID started as a pilot with about 700 people, and information technology'southward grown to nigh 15,000 people/residences subscribed in Washoe and Clark counties, as well as the cities of Henderson and North Las Vegas, with more in the planning stages.

"It's relatively easy to be able to become online," said Keli Wilson. "Information technology'south gratis to the public, information technology's free to law enforcement, and thus far we have been self-funding it. Merely we await family friendly companies to sponsor areas."

Getting Connected

Social media helped the newly created Dunwoody Law Department build ties to the customs soon after the city incorporated in 2008. "Nosotros wanted to find a style to accomplish out," Grogan said, adding that there already were several community blogs in the expanse and many people online. "We started out from twenty-four hours one using Twitter, and and then shortly thereafter nosotros added Facebook and YouTube."

Social media also can help police departments distribute positive stories that may be ignored by mainstream news outlets. "We know that our staffs practise an amazing job each and every day operating under hard and stressful conditions. Yet little of what they do ever gets published," said Grogan in a recent article on the IACP website. "They make big arrests, they provide great customer service, they go the extra mile, they win an award, they relieve a life, and the listing goes on and on. Social media tin and should be used to brainwash the public about what your department does, how they do it and build conviction and trust in your bureau."

Some departments, especially larger ones, shy away from using social media, fearing they'll be overwhelmed by citizen comments. Only Minnesota'south Owens said at that place are techniques to manage citizen interaction, and that the positives of social media will outweigh the negatives.

"Information technology'due south a gratis fashion to get your message out," Owens said. "Think of it every bit your own news channel. If you have a story y'all need to leave there, get it out there."

She said the traditional media at present monitor DPS social media and take picked up a number of the department'south posts. "We use Twitter when there's a bad crash. For example, there was a large backup because of a rollover on Dominicus. We tweeted a rollover on 35 only north of the Burnsville Split, no serious injuries but a big backup. In the winter when we have a big snowstorm, nosotros tweet how many crashes and cars are off the route, that sort of matter."

Owens said the feedback has been rather positive. "People like that we are communicating with them, and we're telling our stories."

To reduce incoming traffic, the department just allows the public to comment on DPS posts. "So a random person wasn't posting on our wall without u.s. knowing," Owens said. Comments appear equally soon as they are posted, and Owens keeps track of what's appearing. She utilizes a Facebook setting that emails her when someone comments on a postal service, flick, album or video.

Owens handles social media pages for the Minnesota State Patrol, DPS, Homeland Security and Emergency Management segmentation, and Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. The State Burn down Marshal'south function handles its own page.

The DPS likewise uses Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to publicize events similar the department'southward "Maroon Day" patrols. Maroon Days — named after the State Patrol colors of maroon and gold — are high-traffic days where every country trooper is on the road enforcing Minnesota laws. To ready, said Owens, "Nosotros did a big social media push. I went on a ride-along with our lieutenant and produced a video on YouTube. And and then on the bodily Maroon 24-hour interval, the State Patrol tweeted with hashtag #MSPmaroonday, how many people they had pulled over for things like seat-chugalug violations, [driving while intoxicated], etc., and how many crashes."

Seattle uses Twitter effectively too. The city created a Twitter feed called "Get Your Car Dorsum" where 911 center staff tweet the license plate number, color, yr, make and model of stolen cars. "We want auto thieves to be on notice that if they steal a car, it will go out to the patrol folks and also out to the general public," Whitcomb said. "If someone gets dwelling, sees an unfamiliar car on their street, they can cheque the feed to see if it was stolen. Nosotros've had a couple of recoveries where people did check and found a stolen machine."

The city as well updated the traditional police ride-along for the social media historic period. A "tweet-along" — where members of the public spend time with officers and tweet in real fourth dimension virtually their experiences — helps residents ameliorate understand what police officers are doing and how they protect the public.

Owens said agencies of all sizes demand to accept a presence on social media. "If Facebook was a country, it would have the third largest population," she said. "But once you post something, information technology'south out there — fifty-fifty if you delete it. So recall earlier you postal service. And you lot don't have to be a grammarian — write like you talk."

In improver to providing an outlet to communicate with the public, social media can help agencies interact with the news media. Owens said the department tweets when the lieutenant is available to comment on a crime or case, which streamlines the public information officeholder's job.

The Old and the New

Embracing social media does non negate traditional law piece of work. Ultimately cops even so bargain with human beings and law enforcement remains a one-to-one business concern. But social media is becoming an important tool for officers and public safe agencies.

"We're always looking at applied science and where we can best use it. We're bringing people into the workforce as well who have that aptitude," said Edwards. "We had Polaroids, then nosotros had 35 mm film for decades. Now we're moving through these unlike platforms far more quickly. Some of information technology is our own demand. We're pushing vendors and engineers and the rest to get u.s. these tools, because we encounter the utility and the benefit for them; in some cases, [we're] fifty-fifty designing them ourselves."

For case, every bit more people migrate to mobile devices and tablets, it will be important for cities to have applications that run on those platforms, Schrier said. While Seattle's immigrant communities have fewer home computers, most have mobile devices and smartphones, so applications and websites should be able to interact with people via those platforms.

Equally the utilize of social networks evolves, information technology'south vital for law enforcement agencies to spotter their peers and share their experiences.

"We're constantly looking at what other people are doing and how they're doing it. There's a lot of communication going on between agencies now, and the willingness to share has increased dramatically," Edwards said. "Nosotros all realize that we may have come up with a really adept idea, and the only way others can get it is if we share it with them. And if nosotros tried stuff that didn't piece of work, we tin can help others avoid the aforementioned pitfalls."

Source: https://www.govtech.com/public-safety/how-social-media-is-changing-law-enforcement.html

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