The Effects of Social Media on Crime Prevention and Awareness
Colton Robinson
Law Enforcement (CJ0392)
Robert Lee
October 27, 2014
Social media is becoming the most important and influential technological advancement in our country since the internet was created in the 1960s. For the longest time people were only limited to e-mails to make communication to one another and there were no large scale social media sites available. However, the internet started taking off in the early 2000s as new generations started bringing to the table new and more advanced ideas. Facebook was invented in 2004, where people were able to connect with whoever they wanted throughout the world to communicate and be able to share anything. On their
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Everyone and their dog it seems like have a social media account. As technology continues to make advancements, people are required to make advancements to support technology. It is almost impossible to keep up with everything, especially crime. One major group of people who are just now catching up with the social media trends are those men and women in law enforcement. With millions of active daily users, the threat of crime can be spotted in advance and stopped, the citizens can be alerted and informed of what is going on in their community and stay safe. Law enforcement now is able to use the internet to help; analyze social media, identify threats, reach out, and involve the community. Being able to analyze or “snoop” …show more content…
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And finally let’s talk about how social media has an impact on gangs plans and their activities. With the help of social media, people can help stop gang plans for violent crimes by catching a possible tweet or an Instagram post. They can catch it and report it to the police before anything comes to fruition. Instead, it is being used as an advantage to the gangs as they are setting plans to do their crimes through social media websites like Twitter.
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According to the International Association of Chiefs of Police (2012), law enforcement agencies can use social media to promote crime prevention strategies and address public concerns. Social media sites provide a convenient and time efficient way to alert citizens to safety concerns and to issue information about safety. Other forms of social media, such as podcasts or blogs, can also be used to distribute information and publicize safety precautions. Law Enforcement Agencies can also use social media to organize “Crime Prevention Events” (International Association of Chiefs of Police,
Even with all the media attention on recent issues of the interenet, people still are somewhat deluded in that information on social media is private or limited to a selective group of people. The reality is, much of the information posted onto social media sites is somewhat public, and has the possibility to be seen or accessed by complete strangers. These strangers may be law enforcement officials. When individuals engage in illegal acts or threaten others and share it to social media it becomes public. Because it is public, it becomes fair game for law enforcement. For law enforcement, the result of this is an evidentiary and probable cause gold mine. Police are adapting to the technology of today to rely on social media to bolster their traditional investigative work.
American policing has evolved tremendously throughout the century, and each era carried its strengths and weaknesses. The American policing Era are as follow: Political Era: (1837-1910); Reform Era: (1910-1980); and Professional Era: 1980-present” (Perez & Moore, 2012, p. 26). We continue to strive to improve our police organization by continuously learn from our past and present mistakes. Due to the technological revolution, policing in the United States has evolved tremendously with advanced gadgets and software which helped make policing more effective and efficient.
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Modern policing plays a vital role in today’s society. More importantly, the introduction of modern technology contributed to the success of police operation. Both the problem oriented policing and community policing are significant in today’s modern society in solving and preventing crimes. Before modern policing came around in the second quarter of the 19th century, law-enforcers usually consisted of soldiers, city watchmen, guards or other people of authority or military experience. As late as the 1700s, modern police had not yet arrived on the scene as we do today. In today’s society, problem oriented and community policing link vitally for the safety and well-being of people in solving and preventing crimes, and the success thereof is contributed largely to the introduction of modern technology. As it’s written in the Criminal justice in Canada by Colin Goff (six editions) “police patrols didn’t reduce the crime rate; detectives didn’t solve a lot of crime; and arrests didn’t necessarily deter would-be criminal” which tells us that policing was not good in the 80s comparing to today. This led to communities hiring private security companies to protect them. According to Sherman (1986) “citizens weren’t calling the police to report crimes and were living with significant fear of crime.” Until (1979) when Herman Goldstein published an article which changed the style of policing, which indi...
Law enforcement use of social media to anticipate criminal activity experienced a significant increase in the last few years. More than 51% people surveyed have expressed their opinion that they follow tip offs about criminal activities. Law enforcement personnel are using social media tools in increasingly unique and effective ways, from locating criminals and evidence to communicating directly with the community about public safety matters
Currently, social media is the most popular method of communicating and interacting with others. It is a methodology to new media as it changes and evolves with our needs and expectations. Social media has evolved and adapted to become a huge part of our personal and professional lives.
Millan, M. (2010). Surprise: The twitter me is not the real me. Retrieved March 8,2014 from the LA Times website:
Today social media has become a big influence on society. There are many different social media sites that allow people to interact with others. Such social media sites are Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. There are many more different sites, but these are the popular networks that are being used today. These sites allow you to connect with anybody you want to. Social media sites can make you feel connected with others and seem like the best thing, but at the same time it can be a weakness that many of us have.
The purpose of this editorial written by Bousquet is to explain to the citizens and police officials that police should use social media to assist their job of preventing crimes. The article was written 2 months ago and is therefore up to date with current and relative news. The author writes about how social media can be used as an advantage to spreading news, gathering evidence, and even identifying school shooters. Bousquet's opinion is not too biased because his article does not bash on Police, but rather explain why it would be a beneficial use. It provides plenty of information to elaborate more on the topic “ The effects of social media on police”.
Nowadays, social media is growing very rapidly throughout the whole world. Social media has changed the way that we communicate with others through using these common social networking sites like Face book, Twitter, and Instagram…For that, social media has positively and negatively impacted our life.
Redsicker, P. (2014). 5 Social Media Trends for 2014, New Research. Retrieved 25 March, 2014, from http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-trends-2014/