The Effects Of Social Media On Law Enforcement

dehumanized, perceived as older and more likely to face police violence if accused of a crime. (2014) As technology has expanded over time, social media has attracted the younger generation causing many to be easily influenced by what is posted. Gender, age and social media are major factors in the interactions between African Americans and the police department. Research Question: How do variables like gender and age increase the percentage of social media in dealing with interactions between the African-American communities and police?

In today’s society, we have been overwhelmed with the internet and social media. This has had an effect on the way law enforcement has had to adapt to social changes. Since the birth of Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Snap Chat, and YouTube law enforcement has had to make many changes to their operations. These are both good and bad, considering almost everyone has a smartphone with a camera and social media applications on them, they are readily accessible to anyone at any time.

The use of social media in law enforcement has been on the rise throughout the U.S. over the past few years. According to the LexisNexis 2014 Social Media Use in Law Enforcement report, eight out of every 10 law enforcement professionals use social media as a tool in investigations, and 25 percent use it every day. The use of social media to help obtain probable cause is widely accepted, the survey shows. Three out of four respondents, or 76 percent, said that, when they used social media as probable cause, it has never been challenged. The percentage is down from 87 percent in 2012.

In recent years, there has been an obvious growing distrust between citizens and those sworn to protect them. Some would argue that this is due to the growing popularity of social media and instant access to information.

The news and social media can help with the investigation. The relationship between the police and journalists depends to a large extend upon the SIO and his attitude towards the media (Innes 1999). By working together, not against the media, the SIO can take advantage of the free publicity. It can help with solving crime, reaching out to witnesses, and gaining the trust and confidence of the public (Cook & Tattersall 2008: 386). Especially when a person is missing (Gibson 2015). Jill Meagher’s husband Tom Meagher turned to social media for help with finding his wife, who was missing at the time. It got a lot of attention and within a few days the offender was located through CCTV footage the Victoria police released. The case was solved quickly

The purpose of this research proposal is to determine if social media impacts the use of excessive force among police officers. The hypothesis states that social media has decreased the number of excessive force incidents that occur in the United States. More so, the ability to share a police officer’s actions across social media as a way to deterrent police officers from using excessive force. Therefore, I hypothesize that once a police department is involved is in involved in an excessive force case that’s widely spread to millions of people, they will be less likely to use excessive force ongoing and the number of citizen complaints will decrease within that police department. The methodology used for this research proposal is a two part

The police have been using social media to catch criminals by creating fake profiles are following around their suspects. This technique is very easy to perform because anyone can create a profile on social media. The police essentially create a spoofed profile and add their suspects as friends to be notified of what they post. This occasionally leads to gathering evidence against their suspects or even getting information about gangs or events. This method is more preferred for police because it is safer than being on the streets. This method can also be more beneficial because criminals nowadays tend to post everything they do on social media. Allowing the authorities to map gang member’s lives and investigate other gang activities.

Being in law enforcement it is very important to have an effective relationship with the community so that public safety is maintained and effective policing is conducted. Unfortunately, one of the biggest issues that have made it difficult for years to have an effective relationship with the community is that the a lot of people in the community believe that police are misusing their power by using excessive force and unlawful actions against people. Social media has also played a big role in making it difficult for people to trust law enforcement due to the fact that anything can be posted at anytime. Trying to rebuild the relationship with the community is very important to overcome the lost faith the community has and to show them that law enforcement is

The initiative is to solve crimes by using the public via cell phones and laptops. By using individuals at coffee shops, on the street, or just in doing whatsoever; police are hoping that the community will use their web sites; on the social networks such as, Face Book, Twitter, and Youtube. In doing so, they can look at pictures and videos of suspects in the midst of an engaging in a crime, through the possibility of identifying and apprehending these criminals; but also uploading video or pictures of crime, so that those criminal suspects also could be located and brought to justice. (Hanson & Quinones, 2011)

The way social media helps the police is looking for keywords that involve the crime on social media and waiting because if you did something most people will put a hint online about it. Other ways the police use social media is that they can put out amber alerts on what happened and all-points bulletins targeting specific people whereas tips filter in a matter of minutes and can help in life or death situations. It’s not just crimes that will help them it is also other social events that they will keep an eye on in case something goes

Law enforcement has always been dangerous because officers risk their lives to form a barrier between criminals and society on a daily basis. The inclusion of social media in police work has opened the door to a whole new set of risks. Media seems to be a double-edged sword for law enforcement. On one hand, it has refined police tactics, enabling police departments to evolve from wanted posters to police radio, and from patrol cars to social networks, such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. On the other hand, it has allowed criminals to organize and establish extremist groups and influence far more people than previously possible with the intent of causing disruption and violence throughout society.

Take the explosive spread of Internet access over the last several decades, for example. Everyday technologies like social media and other applications have made it possible for gangs and even terrorist organizations to coordinate like never before, creating an entirely new, digital space that needs policing.

Big-Data has made an incredible improvement on figuring out urban crime. Social media is the biggest source of communication ever. Social media

One of the goals for law enforcement to connect with the media is to utilize the media’s interest in crime to interact with the public. In research conducted by Huang, Wu, Huang, and Bort (2017) they reviewed three forms of communication labeled Push, Pull, and Networking which related to one-way communication (Push) and two-way communication (Pull and Networking). More specifically, in a Push strategy social media channels are used to publicize information the agency is obliged to share with the public (Huang, Wu, Huang, & Bort, 2017). An example includes daily crimes reported, apprehensions on warrants, and citations issued.

Another advantage of community policing is social media as it gives police and citizens a way to send and receive information to one another with a much broader range than neighborhood watch; which is only limited to a specific community. When police are looking for an offender he or she can reach a nationwide audience by tweeting and/or posting it on his or her social media page so that followers can repost the offender’s information and/or give any helpful information to police to apprehend the offender