Description
Law enforcement organizations are facing a tremendous problem with social media. On one hand, social media such as Facebook, My Space, and Twitter can be extremely useful for effective and efficient communication. On the other hand, Law Enforcement Executives are constantly facing situations in which employee misconduct is occurring through social media. Police Officers are accessing social media from their workstations and patrol cars during their shifts. Police Officers are posting information that is unbecoming for an officer as well as degrading and disrespectful to the profession. Police unions and police officer organizations such as the Fraternal Order of Police and the PBA are opposed to departmental policies that infringe on police officers’ constitutional rights. How do law enforcement organizations regulate the use of social media? Just about every major law enforcement organization has a Facebook account associated with the organization’s website. Therefore, should law enforcement organizations regulate individual officer’s social media activity?
As the policy manager for your law enforcement organization, please research the best practices related to the regulation of police officers’ use of social media and develop a department policy. This research should include interviews with your local law enforcement leaders to determine how they are addressing this issue. In addition, please read the “Social Media” study conducted by the International Association of Chiefs of Police; it can be found in the Reading & Study folder of Module/Week 4.
You must have at least 5 pages not including your title page.
Explanation & Answer
Attached.
Engaging the Public through Social Media - Outline
Thesis Statement: The police department must have specific agendas that officers on duty pay
attention to when using social media in their official capacities.
I.
II.
Social Media in Mass Communication
Law enforcement and social media
a. Uses of social media in law enforcement
b. Trends in social media use by law enforcement agencies
III.
Specific Policy Parameters
a. Responsibility
b. Engaging the Public, outreach, community policing
c. Mass sensitization
d. Accountability
IV.
Reflections
a. The potential benefits of following the policy
b. Potential channels of improving this policy
Running head: ENGAGING THE PUBLIC: SOCIAL MEDIA USE POLICY
Engaging the Public: Social Media Use Policy
Name
Institution
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ENGAGING THE PUBLIC: SOCIAL MEDIA USE POLICY
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Engaging the Public: Social Media Use Policy
Introduction
The policy paper addresses the question of social media and law enforcement. Not the
general question of how corporeal law enforcement agencies interact with the macrocosm of
society; but how the individual policeman or woman should conduct themselves while on social
media in the capacity of an officer. The internet is the most common channel of mass
communication in the twenty-first century. It is everywhere, and it is a useful tool for getting
messages across. In the United States alone, the internet penetration in 2016 stood at 88.5%.
Those are 286, 942, 362 people that actively use the internet on a regular basis (ITU, ITU,
UNPD, 2017). It is a critical mass. People use social media to talk about everything.
Entertainment, news, and commerce are all activities that one can go to a social media platform
to do. For instance, professionals that are on social media use ‘Linked in.' Shared credentials
help in networking. People share audio-visual content on sites like Instagram and the ubiquitous
Facebook. Even communication applications like WhatsApp have groups where groups of
individuals share information of any kind. The primary utility of this technology is that ability to
reproduce information infinitesimally with minimal resources.
Law enforcement and social media
With that background in mind, it is only logical to expect that law enforcement has a
presence on the internet. Police officers represent the law to the public. Our actions influence the
public’s opinion of the law, and ultimately, their subservience to the same law that we set out to
ENGAGING THE PUBLIC: SOCIAL MEDIA USE POLICY
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enforce. The following principles are central to sustainable social media use among police
officers.
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Responsibility
•
Reasonableness
•
Foresight
•
Pre-meditated Themes
Applying the Principles in law enforcement: Expectations
1. It is essential that the individuals in charge of a function such as this understand
that the social media feature of police work is only as valuable as it is brief. Police
departments need the internet and social media to reach the most substantial numbers of
people within the shortest time spans. For instance, a traffic department may send alerts
over Twitter to Facebook to let drivers know where the traffic flows are lighter than when
there are no alerts. It helps...
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