Impact of Social Media on Law Enforcement - Free Paper Sample

Internet research is the process of using Internet information, especially free information on the World Wide Web (Kim & Mohr, 2017). It has often had a significant effect on the way ideas are formed, and knowledge is created. Typical internet research applications, especially in Networks, include personal research on a particular subject such as news or a severe health problem. Internet research has helped provide information that we know nothing or less about. Law enforcement officers may utilize this information and use it to catch criminals. However, not all information on social media platforms concerning criminals is true and correct. Some of it may be misleading not only to the police officers but also to the public. Fake news from social media threatens officers of law enforcement (Patton et al., 2017). Law enforcement faces an increasing number of arrest resist cases, physical assaults of the officer, and murders that target the police. The increased criminal behaviors are encouraged by social and news media false reporting that all officers are racists.

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More imperatively, police departments across the United States use social media sites as an economically significant approach to informing the community about current events (Rost et al., 2016). Generally, law enforcement agencies issue warnings and share real-time information that protects the public in emergencies such as weather events. Police departments use social media sites to solicit public support in reporting crimes to authorities in higher offices. Intelligence gathering is vital when using social media, which calls for more training for police departments, essential in online sites. From an investigative perspective, police officers should be trained in collecting intelligence from social media outlets, and guidance should be provided on how evidence can be ordered legally and ethically from online sites. Social media is used to quickly convey information to large groups of people, hence faster awareness to people in large crowds. Social media has terms and conditions used and is conversant to people in considerable masses; accordingly, its usage is guided to avoid clashing with the authority.

Social media plays an essential role in conducting criminal investigations due to its public nature. Online sites are used to identify suspects and suspected gang squads who steal guns to sell and other property not meant for ordinary people’s general use. Online sites are a valuable source for apprehending sex offenders (Kim & Mohr, 2017). A detective may form a false personal profile or a pseudo account and join online groups where sexual offenders prey on minors or pedophiles. Transcripts of web communicators between child predators and criminal investigators can be used as evidence in court.

Through different sites, law enforcement agencies may promote community trust through transparency and enhanced communication. For instance, when someone alleges officer misconduct, police departments create posts on Twitter and Facebook to inform people about the investigation’s progress and how they handle the situation (Patton et al., 2017). Notably, social media is a fundamental tool for alerting the public about missing children quickly; for instance, law enforcement officers will post a picture of a missing child or person and identify information just in case someone finds or locates them. Anyone who sees or finds the disappeared person is requested to inform the local police to follow up on their information’s authenticity.

Social media has changed drastically, and location sharing has become a popular thing among users. Location sharing, which links large videos to an exact location, is a helpful instrument for suspect finding by officers. The use of BlueJay products by some police departments for tweet scanning so that criminals’ actions can be pinpointed and identify happenings of activities of interest to law enforcement (Rost et al., 2016). Credits to location tagging, officers can look for Crime-prone spots and gain photographic evidence from scenes of crime. In some other cases, the use of social media by law enforcement agencies has adverse outcomes. Cases involving the shooting of black males by law enforcement officers give media opportunities to report. False media narratives lead to many protests and increased violence, which negatively affect law enforcement. The shooting of African Americans by officers challenges law enforcement (Nguyen & Gill, 2016).

Situation crises such as the Michael Brown case and falsified reports are spread by social media encouraging citizens to overreact by violently targeting law enforcement officers around America (Patton et al., 2017). Streaming of current news and movies on media platforms is used by individuals who use social and communication media. News media outlets mostly have platforms where people post current events, information, and news. Citizens are adopting social and news media to participate in current events (Patton et al., 2017). Media outlets convey to people an increase in criminal behavior evidence and responsibilities and tolerance with one another. False reports initiate more groups of people to do illegal activities that target police officers. Officers targeting includes resisting to get arrested, assaulting officers using bottles and stones, and extreme cases, assassination. FBI collected data suggesting that 86 law enforcement officers were killed, and thousands more were attacked in the line of duty in 2015 (Nguyen & Gill, 2016).

Police officers are also affected by social and news media reports that are false. Lately, some protests have led to violence where the participants were injured, city blocks were broken into business looting, and buildings belonging to communities were down. Of late, media outlets don’t report unconfirmed news as they increase distrust and increased criminal behavior. According to their media; therefore, events reports are published without checking facts and making no provision to significantly impact the potential audience (Hall et al., 2016). From officers shooting black males to homosexuality crimes or accusations of political leaders involved in sexual assaults are examples. Speculation caused by social and news media reports on events makes citizens trust everything to be right (Kim & Mohr, 2017). The main challenge is when individuals act against falsely altogether accused people by inaccurate media reports. The availability of evidence supporting false media reports increases negative attitudes among individuals and their actions toward law enforcement throughout America (Hall et al., 2016). Officers of the law are targeted falsely, attacked, and killed by people acting on false media reports. In 2016, the Dallas Police Department was ambushed by an individual who killed five officers leaving nine behind injured (Nguyen & Gill, 2016). The individual assassination motive was triggered by a crisis of events in which the media reported police officers were involved in shooting black Americans. They argued that police officers’ jobs are to protect and give service to the communities and not need protections of their own.

Conclusion

In conclusion, social and news media research provides individuals with platforms for communication during disasters. Weather conditions information, number of injuries occurred, and subjects could post other medical conditions. Data gathering in times of a live disaster to respond to emergencies relies on the person’s validity. People are quick to use handles, especially on Twitter leading to media platforms of individuals to engage themselves online with whom these events occur. Americans have witnessed online fake news reports such as Twitter, and the majority of them stated that they shared the fake news with their friends. A gap in knowledge of counterfeit news effects on police is being reviewed.

References

Hall, A. V., Hall, E. V., & Perry, J. L. (2016). Black and blue: Exploring racial bias and law enforcement in the killings of unarmed black male civilians. American Psychologist, 71(3), 175. https://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2016-15883-001

Kim, K., & Mohr, A. O. N. E. (2017). 2016 Law enforcement use of social media survey. A Joint Publication by the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Urban Institute, 1-22. http://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/88661/2016-law-enforcement-use-of-social-media-survey.pdf

Nguyen, M. T., & Gill, H. (2016). Interior immigration enforcement: The impacts of expanding local law enforcement authority. Urban Studies, 53(2), 302-323. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0042098014563029

Patton, D. U., Brunton, D. W., Dixon, A., Miller, R. J., Leonard, P., & Hackman, R. (2017). Stop and frisk online: theorizing everyday racism in digital policing in the use of social media for identification of criminal conduct and associations. Social Media+ Society, 3(3), 2056305117733344. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2056305117733344

Rost, K., Stahel, L., & Frey, B. S. (2016). Digital social norm enforcement: Online firestorms in social media. PLoS One, 11(6), e0155923. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0155923