When the Boston Police became the first police force to start using Twitter, they knew they weren’t going to be the last. Today, countless police departments are using the service, including the Manchester Police, Toronto Police and San Francisco Police to name a few. But while there have been a few humorous moments, such as a man discussing the possibility of a zombie invasion with the Boston Police Department, it has also been very serious business for law enforcement. Twitter has become a powerful new tool for police departments, both as a means to communicate quickly with the public and as a means to research and track illegal activity. Most importantly, it’s a trend that seems to be growing as social media plays a larger and larger role in our lives.
Getting the Word Out
Police in Victoria, Australia are using Twitter this holiday season as a means to reach out to young people who will be on break from school, sending out safety videos and tweeting their activity. The idea is to reach out to college students in a medium that is natural to them, social networking. However, everyday users have also benefited from the police using Twitter. For example, in New Orleans, police, in a partnership with the Department of Transportation and Development, tweet out road incidents and traffic updates to alert commuters, something very common in many cities. Finally, police have also leveraged Twitter as a PR tool, such as when Manchester tweeted out their entire workload for a day to make a point about how much they do daily and what their job is really like. However, Police have been using Twitter as a two-way street and aren’t just using it for public education but for actual enforcement.
