I read an article recently in a popular on-line magazine that suggested police are struggling with the use of social media.
My take? The only reason police are having any difficulty with the use of social media could not be any more perfectly described than from the article itself…
“Late at night,” he said, “you do more good walking a beat in a cyber neighborhood than walking a beat on the street.”
Holy moly! Budget problems solved! The world is saved. Take all police officers off the street. No more cars, no more wasteful gas. No more answering the silly call for help. No more risk of injuries, lawsuits or complaints.
All we need is a cop in cyber space and the world will be saved.
That’s right…this is a quote directly from the article made by a police officer. This is why there is confusion and struggle with social media. Some people actually believe that social media is some sort of silver bullet. The cure for all that is wrong with society. The great equalizer.
I’m not sure if can make this clear enough…WRONG! IT IS NOT ANY OF THE ABOVE.
Confusion? You bet. If this it what is being said and being supported then I bet police are confused. Dumb! I can’t think of one reason why I would rather have a cyber cop and not a real live police officer walking the beat. That’s right…a real cop. Not a social media cop. Even when cyber crimes happen, I want a real cop that knows how to investigate in the cyber space. Knows how to secure evidence which leads to convictions which take the bad people away and prevents further victimization.
Confused about social media? Let me clear it up for you very simply. Social media is a tool that police can use to more effectively and efficiently communicate with the public, and provide broadcast information to their communities.
How we communicate and what we broadcast varies. The tools we use may come and go but the purpose is simple…where the people are, so should be the police.
Your community is using social media? You need to be using social media. Plain and simple.
While I think it is a good tool for the most part, I have seen some officers over step their boundaries in the interactions they have with some people. Not you of course, as I have never seen you act or speak in an unprofessional way to anyone.
I really appreciate the comment and support. Thankfully, the cases where officers overstep are rare, but they hurt all of us when they occur. That’s why its so important that we learn from others mistakes or ‘mis-steps’ and share them so we can all be better at using the tools.
Hey Tim – Hope all’s well …
Great post – I agree that SM should simply be a tool on the toolbelt. There are great advantages in terms of community relationships and positive agency image exposure that can result. The trick now, at least as far as I see it, is getting followership internally among the agency’s officers – getting them to a comfort level with SM, and figuring out a way to monitor and control output. Most small to mid-size agencies like mine, if they are even using SM, have one person dedicated part-time to the task. While we would love to expand the number of agency personnel involved, we need to be ensured that those we utilize in SM are posting, tweeting, sharing, etc. in a way that best represents our agency. I see that, at least at the “under 200 cops” size as our agency’s New Year’s Task for 2013…
Hope to see you at SMILE-Con!