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ATOMBobbies on the Facebook beat
Added by The Editor, 16 days ago.
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Greater Manchester Police (GMP) have jumped on the Facebook bandwagon and are using the social networking site to catch criminals.
The Force's web unit has created its very own Facebook application, to alert local residents to incidents, make appeals for information and update them on ongoing operations. It also features a news feed and links to video, all of which can be shared between members of the social networking site.
Current news stories on the feed include sentencing details for two murder trials, appeals for information about robbery by a man with an axe, and calls for help locating two missing people.
The application also links to an online crime reporting form, allowing people to report crimes without picking up the phone or going to another page on the web.
Assistant Chief Constable Rob Taylor said: "This application allows Greater Manchester Police to further raise awareness of incidents taking place within our local communities, in a bid to gain more intelligence and bring offenders to justice."
Policeman Ian Massey, a Facebook member, has posted his comments about the application on the site: "This is a fantastic innovation. I'm a West Midlands officer and will be recommending this approach to my [Force]," he writes.
The GMP said that 300 people have already added the application, but Facebook is showing about 130 daily active users.
Taylor added: "Greater Manchester Police is proud to be the first force in the country to use this new technology and it demonstrates our commitment to exploring all avenues available to us to help fight and detect crime."
Certainly, he has made an important step in opening up the organisation to younger members of the community it serves. In last year's Realtime Generation survey of 609 UK young people aged between 13 and 17, Logicalis found that 87% of those in this age group are members of one or more community and social-networking websites. "We can now assert that this technology is ubiquitous amongst this generation," said Chris Gabriel of Logicalis.
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Comments
There are currently 2 comments about this blog.
Adelaide S, about 3 hours ago
Yes it's a great idea, but is it all leading to information overload? I read a BBC news story last week about the wife of Olympic rower Ed Coode, who had her handbag stolen and was then told that there was no point the police checking CCTV footage as they didn't have the staff time anyway. The Met called the system an "utter fiasco" - with only 3% of London's street crime solved using CCTV. I'm all for the use of technology to help combat crime, but it has to have a direct (or practical) benefit, otherwise what's the point other than media exposure for the police?
Victoria, 8 days ago
I think this is a brilliant idea on their part. In the US, the LA Fire Department is a regular user of Twitter (www.twitter.com), providing useful information to locals. Perhaps the Greater Manchester Police should try this avenue next?