CaMabigail

This was originally written not to be read by you but a criminal justice scholar, bear that in mind please.


Our country is in an economic crisis. Various states, including California, are facing law enforcement budget cuts. These cuts lead to layoffs which take law enforcement off the streets, cutting hours, cutting resources and leaving an opening for government to being to appear powerless.[1] When government begins to appear powerless, crime appears to escalate. Would-be criminals of a former time, with the knowledge that less law enforcement agents are on the job, become more brazen and commit crimes. The severity of crimes is doomed to increase. The future of criminal justice in this nation looks bleak. Peter Scharf, a criminologist at Tulane University in New Orleans believes that outsourcing criminal justice to the general public is the answer.[2] Throughout history, law enforcement has relied on the layperson to provide “tips” that provide information for solving murders, robberies, and kidnappings. The popular organization Crime Stoppers USA boasts that the tips its organization has received has lead to 493,369 arrests.[3] Organizations such as these have become more increasingly archaic. Not many people in my generation want to pick up a telephone and wait on hold. We want instant results, instant gratification, and we want to do it on the fly, while we check our emails and text message our friends. Law enforcement agencies around the nation have begun to realize this. With the passing of Meghan’s Law we now receive updates on Highway signs alerting us to be on the lookout for a missing child, often times providing us with a description of the vehicle and/or suspect involved in the kidnapping. We are all advised to call 911 from our cell phones if we spot a drunk driver on the roadways. While these are great examples of law enforcement “getting with the times,” the answer, is to look no further than your own fingers. The most innovative way law enforcement has sought and will continue to seek our assistance is through social media networking sites.[4]

We were all introduced to Social Media years ago with such websites as Myspace[5] and YouTube.[6] Following closely in their footsteps Facebook[7] and Twitter[8] emerged.[9] The Social Media websites allow their users to connect and network with friends, colleagues, former classmates, and people you will never meet outside of the virtual world. Through the use of Twitter Alarms,[10] law enforcement can reach thousands of people within a matter of minutes. In the future, all law enforcement agencies will be online and tweeting to the community at large they have sworn to serve. In less than five years, I predict that social media will be the equivalent to having ten full time detectives and they provide the potential for the layperson to police their own neighborhoods. Future law enforcement officers will rely on the layperson and our societal obsession with social media networking websites. Social media provides a platform that will make reporting crime fast, easy and fun, as well as bonding our communities to take action to prevent and stop crime from happening.

Social media has already proved to be resourceful in solving crimes and in preventing them. In 2006 Canadian police used YouTube to help bring in tips to help solve a murder. The police posted video from a surveillance camera taken at a nightclub where a man was fatally stabbed. After the video was posted and viewed over 30,000 times, the suspect (seen in the surveillance video) turned himself in. Law enforcement in Canada stated that they have “little doubt that the extra media generated by the use of YouTube contributed the fact that [the suspect] turned himself in.”[11] Personally, if I saw a video of myself perpetrating a crime going viral[12] on the internet, I would run to the nearest police station too. It would only be a matter of time before someone else turned you in.

What was coined the “first Facebook arrest” occurred in New Zealand in January of 2009. The would-be criminal attempted to crack open a safe of the Frankton Arms Tavern. Police in New Zealand posted pictures of the suspect in newspapers and on news websites, to no avail. What ultimately brought the needed tips for identification came from the taverns Facebook Fan Page.[13] Kristen Nicole (2009) a blogger for the website AllFacebook.com believes that Facebook provides a representation of the physical community even outside of the virtual realm, this “ready-made community makes dissemination of information that much easier.” Facebook, like its competitors MySpace, YouTube and Twitter were developed to allow people to connect. However, Facebook has an innovative platform that allows patrons of business to connect via each business’ Fan Page. Those that had become Fans of the tavern no doubt would be able to recognize the picture of the suspect, especially when law enforcement knew it was a crime by someone who knew the place well. As a resident of a small town, I have already become a fan of any business within a ten miles radius, including the local feed store. I can stay in touch with my community without having to venture any further than my computer.

Through YouTube law enforcement was able to post video of a suspect and in turn prosecute that suspect. Facebook was able to rally patrons of a burglarized tavern and solve the mystery of who the suspect was on the surveillance pictures. While both of those sites provide an invaluable resource to law enforcement, the “buzz” around social media and technology in general is about “real time.” Now more than ever people want to know what is happening the second it happens. Social Media has a new addition that is already making this happen. Welcome, Twitter. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin law enforcement turned to Twitter to help solve a murder that had just occurred. The tweet read: "Latest homicide in the city is NOT a random act. Male, 33, shot in 1500 block N. 39. More details as we have them."[14] Law enforcement has found Twitter to be a useful tool to get “real time” updates to the public. Utilizing Twitter to “to alert people to traffic disruptions, to explain why police are in a certain neighborhood or to offer crime prevention tips.”[15] But law enforcement is also using them for more urgent matters such as bomb scares, wildfires, and school lockdowns. Anne E. Schwartz, a spokesperson for Milwaukee police says the site is a valuable resource to the entire department. The reasoning and logic are simple; Milwaukee police are attempting to disseminate information in a venue where people are already going to get information.[16]

USA Today writer John Martin wrote an article on law enforcement’s utilization of social media networking websites. Police in Baltimore have the right attitude when it comes to social media. Baltimore Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi was quoted in this article as saying “I just think if we put out information like that, it encourages people to reciprocate and contact us with information they might have."[17] It’s not just Baltimore and Milwaukee that have come to understand the crime fighting benefits of these sites. South Dakota’s Public Safety Department, the Police Department in Dalton, Georgia, and even the San Rafael Police Department are on Twitter[18] [19] Social Media is providing a platform that no amount of community outreach can ever hope to. Community outreach in this decade means you have access to a computer or cell phone.

Social media is a valuable resource to solving crimes that have already occurred. What about preventing crimes from occurring? With the help of social media, residents in a working-class town of Cudahy, Wisconsin, did just that. Residents began noticing a trend of having their stolen garage door openers and the culprits returning later to steal the contents of their garages, in response, the citizens of Cudahy formed a Neighborhood Watch Group. They armed themselves with flashlights, cell phones, and Twitter. They created Twitter Alarms. With four letters, “BOLO” an acronym for “be on the lookout” instantly alerted the entire neighborhood that suspicious activity was spotted and to be on alert. It took these civilian crime fighters three weeks to effectively deter the garage robbers in their neighborhood.[20]

Law enforcement around the country has begun to embrace the social media revolution and is using it to fight crime. The future of crime fighting is upon us, through the revolution of social media networking sites. Eventually, all law enforcement agencies will embrace the use of social media in combating crime. An informed public is a public ready to combat crime and help deter it. The general (albeit law abiding) public has an interest, nay - an outright obsession, with keeping safe that which they hold dear. Many feel they now have the tools through social networking websites to help themselves, and everything they hold dear, safe. As I type this inside the safe confine of my own home, I can log into a website and see the entire perimeter of my home streaming live through surveillance cameras. This surveillance video, could, if necessary, greatly assist law enforcement in catching anyone attempting to break into my home. I have active Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube accounts that I check regularly. At last count, Facebook had over twenty million active users. That doesn’t count the endless businesses that have pages you can become fans of, the groups you can become a part of.

These websites provide more information than any informant. Forget about National Crime Databases with mug shots of potential suspects, a quick search of Facebook or MySpace will lead to the intimate details of each of its users, equipped with several different pictures of not only the user but the users friends, family and children. You can find out all of the users favorite places to eat, drink, or hang out. Some users are even brazen enough to post affiliations with gangs or illicit drug use. Social media is the future of crime fighting, but a different type of crime fighting, one that relies on each individual citizen to be accountable, assist law enforcement and warn others in their community of danger. Social Media is Crime Fighting 2.0, the second generation, infused with technology.

Epilogue: I was inspired to write this when I started seeing a slew of tweets on my stream notifying me of a Meghan’s Law alert. Suddenly I didn’t have to be in car to see the highway signs, I could be in the parking lot at work or in the comfort of my home, not that I would do in any good in helping to locate the kidnapped child, but I most certainly could “ReTweet” it in hopes that someone else that could help might see it. I realized then that these social media websites have the potential not only to inform the public at large, but to keep them safe. To potentially save lives, to give the law abiding citizens of this nation the ability to stand up and stop crime. After I read Peter Shrag’s California: America’s High Stakes Experiment I began to realize that we all need to get involved. The solution to crime is community involvement, which social media provides. I honestly believe that social media can and will work for a greater good.