Exploring the Benefits of Social Media for Law Enforcement: A Review

This presentation explores the multifaceted benefits of social media for law enforcement. It begins by highlighting the historical context of social media and its increasing importance as a valuable intelligence-gathering resource. The presentation then delves into specific applications, such as community outreach, sharing tactics and techniques, and finding individuals seeking assistance. It also examines the use of social media as an investigative tool, including screening applicants and gathering information on criminal activities. The presentation outlines best practices for law enforcement's use of social media, including platform selection, audience determination, and protocol implementation. Finally, it discusses the future of social media in law enforcement, emphasizing its role in community engagement and data sharing. References to various academic sources support the arguments presented.

BEENFITS OF SOCIAL MEDIA
FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT

Social Media and Law Enforcement
 Expanded group of awareness on social media
 Monitored by amateur reporters and cameras
(Mitrou et al. 2018)
 Contentious and fascinating for the society
 Contains suspense, mystery and anticipation and is
captivating to society

History of Social Media
Friendster in 2002
MySpace in 2003
LinkedIn in 2003
Facebook in 2004 (Boyd 2015)
YouTube in 2005
Twitter in 2006

Characteristics
Information from public documents has been available
publicly for years
The social networking has increased the vulnerability
risk
Social networking framework promotes self-promotion
(Zolkepli and Kamarulzaman 2015)
Allows easy access to an infinite pool of future friends
Engage in caustic and the less ethical behaviors

Use of Social Media
Rapidly became the valuable intelligence
gathering resource for the law enforcement
officials (Goldsmith 2015)
Attempt to undermine suspects
Create law enforcement bias
Monitor information (Veeckand Hoger 2014)
Create gang membership alliances

Usage as a monitoring tool
Solving Crimes
Community Outreach (Ferguson 2019)
Sharing Tactics and Techniques (Beshears
2017)
Finding People who seeks help
Hiring Decisions

How law enforcement use social media as platform
for communication
Twitter, Facebook and other social media
platforms have proved for being very useful
Police forces may use them as the platform
for community interaction (Trottier 2015)
Can open Facebook page to monitor or
providing the techniques of safety or can be
used for the announcement.

Social Media as Investigative Tool
Major advantage to the law enforcement as well as the
officers serving the communities (Attai et al. 2015)
For screening and detecting unwanted applicants
Investigators can use the social media platform as
the investigative tool (Davis, Alves and Sklansky 2014)
Undercover accounts for collecting information about
criminals and crimes

Best Practices of Social Media for law Enforcement
Choose the social media platform wisely
Determine the audience
Time posts properly
Have the protocol in place (Jennings, Fridell
and Lynch 2014)
Consistency is the key
Combine the efforts

Future of Social Media for Law Enforcement
Community sphere as the social media platform
becomes the cop on the corner version of the 21st
century.
Input from the public for examining how their
communities view the social media participation
(Duijn and Klerks 2014)
Social networking transfers and captures data
Share vital knowledge communication with these sites

Conclusion
Tracked by certain communications centers
of some of the agencies.
Benefit from 24 hour access to the social
media.
social media lets police engage community
members who would not communicate with
the law enforcement.

References
Attai, D.J., Cowher, M.S., Al-Hamadani, M., Schoger, J.M., Staley, A.C. and
Landercasper, J., 2015. Twitter social media is an effective tool for breast
cancer patient education and support: patient-reported outcomes by
survey. Journal of medical Internet research, 17(7), p.e188.
Beshears, M.L., 2017. Effectiveness of police social media use. American
Journal of Criminal Justice, 42(3), pp.489-501.
Boyd, D., 2015. Social media: A phenomenon to be analyzed. Social
Media+ Society, 1(1), p.2056305115580148.
Davis, E.F., Alves, A.A. and Sklansky, D.A., 2014. Social media and police
leadership: Lessons from Boston. Australasian policing, 6(1), p.10.
Duijn, P.A. and Klerks, P.P., 2014. Social network analysis applied to
criminal networks: recent developments in Dutch law enforcement.
In Networks and network analysis for defence and security (pp. 121-159).
Springer, Cham.
Ferguson, A.G., 2019. The rise of big data policing: Surveillance, race,
and the future of law enforcement. NYU Press.

References
Goldsmith, A., 2015. Disgracebook policing: social media and the rise of
police indiscretion. Policing and society, 25(3), pp.249-267.
Jennings, W.G., Fridell, L.A. and Lynch, M.D., 2014. Cops and cameras:
Officer perceptions of the use of body-worn cameras in law
enforcement. Journal of criminal justice, 42(6), pp.549-556.
Mitrou, L., Kandias, M., Stavrou, V. and Gritzalis, D., 2014, April. Social
media profiling: A Panopticon or Omniopticon tool?. In Proc. of the 6th
Conference of the Surveillance Studies Network.
Trottier, D., 2015. Open source intelligence, social media and law
enforcement: Visions, constraints and critiques. European Journal of
Cultural Studies, 18(4-5), pp.530-547.
Veeck, A. and Hoger, B., 2014. Tools for monitoring social media: A
marketing research project. Marketing Education Review, 24(1), pp.37-72.
Zolkepli, I.A. and Kamarulzaman, Y., 2015. Social media adoption: The role
of media needs and innovation characteristics. Computers in Human
Behavior, 43, pp.189-209.