Social media has infiltrated all areas in human life including their work, for instance, the police department. The police officers can use social media as a way of changing the perception the community has about the police agency and that would help improve community-police relationships. Social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are the most commonly used sites. The police department can open public platform in these sites and invite people to like the pages. Using several sites will be beneficial as it will help target a wider crowd considering different age groups prefer varying social networking sites (Davis, Alves, & Sklansky, 2014). The sites will help the police officers in delivering information to the community members and make them aware of the operations of the police officers.
New York Police Department uses the social networking sites to keep the people of New York what the agency is doing to improve security and protect the people. There are daily stories posted using the Facebook site https://www.facebook.com/NYPD/, showing the participation of the police officers in community welfare. Twitter is used for reporting the NYPD news concerning any issues such as the safety of the people https://twitter.com/NYPDnews?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor. NYPD also uses Instagram to post their videos and photos of their operations and any community welfare they are involved in through https://www.instagram.com/nypd/?hl=en. Using these sites help people to acknowledge that NYPD participates more in community welfare. It helps to create a positive image of the police department.
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New York Police Department has used social media successfully to interact with the community members. When they tweet and community members tweet back, they always engage them. It shows that they recognize their duty in keeping the New York people aware of security plans happening in their region. The interaction between the NYPD and the people has helped to build a trustworthy relationship as both parties engage in each other through social media to increase the security of the region. The department has improved their reputation over time, and the videos and images show how the police officers are sacrificing themselves to improve the situation at New York (Hu, Rodgers, & Lovrich, 2018). The social networking sites allow the police officers and the people to interact better and it helps in the flow of information such as when dealing with cases of suspects and finding missing people.
References
Davis, E. F., Alves, A. A., & Sklansky, D. A. (2014). Social media and police leadership: Lessons from Boston. Australasian Policing, 6(1), 10.
Hu, X., Rodgers, K., & Lovrich, N. P. (2018). “We Are More Than Crime Fighters”: Social Media Images of Police Departments. Police Quarterly, 21(4), 544-572.
Responses
Response 1
Hello William, I second you on the thought of social media taking a significant part in the lives of people. The police department has also established that they can use social media sites such as Facebook to interact better with the community members. Announcing the recruitment, for instance, makes the interested youths informed so that they can be ready (Jenn, 2012). Making the agency social media sites public enables the community members to join at their time.
Reference
Jenn .D,.D. (30 April 2012). 5 Easy Steps to Measure Social Media Campaigns. Retrieved from https:// www.entrepreneur.com/ article/223437
Response 2
Hi Bryant, I agree with you that police departments have incorporated the current technology in their daily operations. Sites such as Facebook and Instagram have made it easier to get messages to the community members and in turn, get their responses. It is necessary for the police agencies to choose the site they will be using wisely depending on the age of the community members (Meijer & Thaens, 2013). The older generation would prefer Facebook over Instagram which requires the agency to be active in all sites possible.
Reference
Meijer, A., & Thaens, M. (2013). Social media strategies: Understanding the differences between North American police departments. Government Information Quarterly, 30(4), 343-350.
