Strategies

1. Strategies: Use media as an ally by national crime prevention council 2018

Strategy
Local media coverage of and support for community crime prevention help raise public awareness and encourage participation in
community-based projects.

Crime Problem Addressed

This strategy advocates the use of local television, radio, newspapers, and other media to focus attention on community-based crime
prevention projects and organizations. By highlighting such efforts, the media reinforces the community's standard in opposition to all
types of crime and helps build crime prevention awareness among the public.

Key Components
Key tasks of this strategy include recognizing the power of the media as the public's source of information on a variety of topics;
identifying media contacts; and establishing cooperation between community programs and media resources. The media should be
asked to publicize community events and promote public education on crime prevention through articles, public service
announcements, radio shows, news programs, and cable television shows.

Key Partnerships
Local crime prevention organizations must recognize their contacts in the public media as important partners in spreading the crime
prevention message. Members of community-based crime prevention programs can begin to build partnerships with media sources by
talking with reporters assigned to cover crime or community-related issues and by asking media sources for help in designing a public
education campaign. Community leaders, key elected officials, church leaders, school board and Parent-Teacher Association
members, philanthropists, and local celebrities often maintain contact with media sources who could be brought together to sponsor or
support crime prevention activities in the community.

Potential Obstacles
Community groups may find it difficult to see local media as partners in crime prevention. Media of all types have frequently been
characterized as part of the problem communities have with violence. Many communities now see the media as part of the strategy for
educating the public and building public support for organizations and programs. Still, the media gravitate toward stories easy to
understand and describe. To gather media support and coverage, community groups should attempt to design events or celebrations
that clearly communicate their programs' successes and that highlight celebrity involvement, elected officials' participation, youth
leadership, and dramatic visual or audio components.
 
Signs of Success
Crime and fear of crime consistently rank among the top fears of the American public in national and local surveys. Thus, a new crime
prevention activity in which large numbers of people participate and achieve success locally is newsworthy.

In Memphis, Tennessee, the mayor, citizens, businesses, and community groups recently raised $1 million in donations for the police
department through "Operation Drive Out Crime," which engaged local television and radio stations and the local newspaper as
cosponsors.

The campaign relied on local television and radio news stories and public appeals, as well as newspaper public service announcements
for publicity. When first approached, a local network television affiliate station had just begun a three-month anticrime campaign, so
station managers viewed Operation Drive Out Crime as a welcome tie-in. That station produced promotional spots and aired them
each night, often during prime time. The same station also included many news stories, often focusing on the department's need for
resources.

A radio station also joined in the effort as a sponsor, running daily advertisements, highlighting the project during shows, and running
weekly interviews with sponsors and police officers. The newspaper carried stories and contributed advertising. In addition, it
included contribution envelopes in two different Sunday editions of the paper. Effective local publicity led to national publicity, and
donations have poured in from across the state and around the country.

Applying the Strategy

Cleveland's mayor enlisted the sponsorship of a local television station and radio station for his announcement of the city's gun
exchange and violence reduction and crime prevention initiatives. The television station not only helped to announce these very
successful initiatives, it also operated the telephone banks for donations.
2. Why police should monitor social media to prevent crime by Christopher Raleigh bousquet, 2018.

Massachusetts released a damning report detailing prejudice in social media surveillance efforts by the Boston Police Department
(BPD). The report revealed that between 2014 and 2016, the BPD had tracked keywords on Facebook and Twitter in an effort to
identify potential terrorist threats. The BPD labeled as “Islamist extremist terminology” keywords like “ISIS” and “Islamic State,”
but also phrases like #MuslimLivesMatter” and “ummah,” the Arabic word for community. These practices by the BPD reflect a
growing trend in law enforcement called social media mining. Using natural language processing tools, police departments scan
social platforms for keywords they believe indicate danger. According to the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of
Law, all large cities, and many smaller ones, have made significant investments in social media monitoring tools. A
2016 survey by the International Association of Chiefs of Police and Urban Institute revealed that 76 percent of officers use social
media to gain tips on crime, 72 percent to monitor public sentiment, and 70 percent for intelligence gathering. Until recently,
companies like GeoFeedia, SnapTrends, and Media Sonar peddled their products from city to city, advertising their ability to
prevent crimes and catch perpetrators. However, a 2016 report from the ACLU of California presented a major setback for these
companies, revealing that cities were using their products to target words like “#blacklivesmatter” and “police brutality” following
the killings of Michael Brown and Freddie Grey. And the way police departments in these cities accessed this user data is
reminiscent of practices that inspired outrage over Cambridge Analytica. Law enforcement agencies partnered with companies that
gained access to backend data streams via APIs, a privilege that Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram revoked shortly thereafter. Yet
police departments have quietly continued to employ social media mining, partnering with a number of startups. While Facebook
and Instagram announced in 2017 that they were banning developers from using their data for surveillance, privacy advocates
suspect police departments maintained access to these data streams via third parties that didn't advertise their surveillance intentions
to social media companies. In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, however, Facebook made it more difficult for anyone to
access the back-end data that law enforcement has relied on for social mining. But even without access to back-end data, police
departments have persisted with social mining. In the last couple of months alone, law enforcement officials have proposed efforts to
use social monitoring to identify potential school shooters and secure borders using readily available information from users' news
feeds. Police departments should continue to monitor social media to inform law enforcement. After all, social media sites are full of
data that can make police interventions more effective, from posts about crimes in progress to damning evidence offered freely by
criminals and even live videos of crimes. However, in designing these initiatives, police departments need to pay closer attention to
the Constitution as well as the needs of citizens. For one, law enforcement agencies must place more emphasis on privacy. The
Fourth Amendment protects citizens from warrantless searches in areas in which they have a reasonable expectation of privacy. For
example, police can’t search someone’s house without a compelling reason that justifies a search warrant, because citizens expect to
have privacy in their homes. Do citizens have a reasonable expectation of privacy regarding social media posts? One might think
that because this information may be publicly available to anyone on the internet, users would abandon any privacy expectations
when posting, liking a page, or checking into a location. And yet, while they might expect their friends to see a few of their posts,
very few users expect someone to track every single piece of their social media activity over the course of a week, month, year, or
longer—as police departments often do with social mining. While not yet accepted by the Court, under the “mosaic theory,” while
one social post might be public, citizens have a reasonable expectation of privacy over the whole of their social media activity
during an extended period.

3. The relationship between social media data and crime rates in the United States by Sean D. Young, 2019

Crime monitoring tools are needed for public health and law enforcement officials to deploy appropriate resources and develop
targeted interventions. Social media, such as Twitter, has been shown to be a feasible tool for monitoring and predicting public health
events such as disease outbreaks. Social media might also serve as a feasible tool for crime surveillance. In this study, we collected
Twitter data between May and December 2012 and crime data for the years 2012 and 2013 in the United States. We examined the
association between crime data and drug-related tweets. We found that tweets from 2012 were strongly associated with county-level
crime data in both 2012 and 2013. This study presents preliminary evidence that social media data can be used to help predict future
crimes. We discuss how future research can build upon this initial study to further examine the feasibility and effectiveness of this
approach.

4. Media and how it impacts the criminal justice system by Harrison Perrin, 2020

What is it that you see when you get on your social media? In this day and age, it’s COVID updates and lots of politics. But a majority
of what’s on are recent crimes, as well as updates about criminal activity. The article “The Link Between Criminal Justice and Social
Media”  by Vista College, goes in depth on how the media has assisted the Criminal Justice System (CJS), as well as hurt the system.
Studies throughout the article back up multiple effects that the media has on the CJS. I read this article to see how it helps and hurts
the Criminal Justice System while including my own outlook on how it may help and hurt.
Media and Crime
Media itself spans all over the globe, meaning that almost anything reported can be at our fingertips in a second. This is, says Vista
College, something that is both good and bad. There are certain people who get on these media platforms to do harm. However, there
are some people who use social media for good like police officers. According to the article, the Brennan Center for Justice did a
study that found ninety-six point four percent of law enforcement agencies use social media somehow to protect the public, way more
than I imagined them ever using it. I know people that have come home after staying in another state for a week, with their house in
shambles from a burglary. If the police started using media to check in on people, it could be incredibly helpful by preventing crime
before it happens.
The Media and CJS Working Together
As discussed by the authors, almost ninety-seven percent of law enforcement agencies use social media to help prevent crime. Social
media such as Instagram, may have details regarding where criminals live, and work. This is how Deputy Bill Levens was able to
track and arrest a wanted felon in Florida. He used his “undercover Instagram account“, to watch a live video in his area, and shone a
light on the felons window, viewable on stream. This was super helpful for him, as they caught him off guard and were able to arrest
him before he got to one of three unregistered firearms in the house. This is unbelievably smart. Not only did his method of finding the
felon work but I imagine he saved his own life by catching him off guard. Using accounts is also a smart way to find a person on
websites like my own. They tend to have similar information that he used on the felon.
5. Social Media utilization for policing and crime prevention in Lagos, Nigeria by: Usman Ojedokun 2019
The benefits embedded in the use of social media for policing and law enforcement are increasingly becoming recognized globally.
Despite the growing popularity of social media in Nigeria, empirical information on the disposition of police personnel toward their
adoption for policing and crime investigation are generally scarce. Therefore, this study investigated the use of social media for
policing and crime prevention among 122 police officers serving at the headquarters of the Lagos State Police Command. The
research design was descriptive and cross-sectional. Survey questionnaire and key informant interview methods were employed for
data collection. Results indicated that respondents were generally positively disposed toward the adoption of social media for policing
and crime prevention (c2 =13.68; p > .05). Although social media platforms were being used for different police duties, 47.0% of the
respondents identified intelligence gathering as the major purpose for which they were being used. The majority of the officers
(77.2%) claimed that they had not been exposed to any form of training regarding social media usage for policing. It is pertinent for
the Nigeria Police Force to professionally train its officers on the use of social media platforms for policing and law enforcement.

Campaigns
1. Media campaigns and crime prevention by Mendelson, 2018
To a very significant degree, the success of any public Communications effort on behalf of crime prevention depends directly on the
kinds and amounts of control that communicators can institute and, carry out directly vis-a-vis explications of: (1) objectives and
goals, (2) themes, (3) appeals, (4) targets', (5) media, and (6) timing of dissemination. The fewer are thecomponents over which
communicators can exercise direct control, the more likely will their deperidence be on serendipity, random chance, coincidence, and
audience self-selection for the achievement of "effects." ender these circumstances "effects" will be difficult to identify; oftentimes
they will ( be inconsistent and even contradictory; and most importantly, such "effects" will be variable rather than singular or
monotonic. Research in miscommunications informs us that in those instances where communicator control is neither exclusive nor
persistent, -we can expect some "effects" to occur in. each of three audience "response" domains--in their levels of information; in
their beliefs, attitudes and opinions; and in their actions. But to expect substantive changes to occur equally within each response
rubric would be quite unrealistic. In the real world, purposive mass media efforts designed to persuade can be expected to accomplish
a good deal in the general areas of raising awareness and interest levels among various. publics; somewhat less in the areas of attitude
change, and motivation; and just a discouragingly limited degree of success in-generating recommended action-taking. Still, even with
the limited prospects for affecting large-scale behavioral changes, it is essential that control of purposive mass communications on
behalf of rite prevents be, grounded as much empiricism as possible. The questions we must ask in assessing a given campaign are
multiple: much awareness did the campaign generate and along whom? How much belief, attitude, and value formation and/or change
did it produce and among whom? How much motivation did it stimulate and, among whom? How much behavioral change did it
induce, and among whom? How much reinforcement did it accomplish, and among whom?
2. Implement an aggressive public outreach campaign on effective strategies to combat juvenile violence no date

Public information about juvenile crime presents a paradox. In some ways there is too much information -- and in other ways there
isn't enough. While the media frequently focus on the increase in youth gangs, drugs, and juvenile violence, few people beyond the
juvenile justice field realize that a relatively small number of youths become involved in serious criminal activity. Most people are
also unaware that a significant body of research exists on the causes and correlates of juvenile delinquency and crime, serving as a
foundation for effective Federal, State, and local programs and strategies. Researchers have verified that long-term public education
campaigns on violence prevention, family education, alcohol and other drug prevention, and gun safety curriculums in school are
effective strategies to help prevent delinquency. They also concur that involving youth and developing community consensus are
essential to an effective public education process. A well-designed public education campaign can make a positive impact on public
opinion, target specific audiences, and be a cost-effective way of providing critical information to many people. For example, it can
enhance community understanding about the nature and value of the juvenile justice system. It can educate all members of the
community about effective prevention and intervention strategies. It can help communities identify and access local resources. And it
can inform policymakers of tested, proven options for effective juvenile justice at all levels. This section documents the effectiveness
of mass media public education efforts and suggests a range of successful strategies that can bring about measurable change in
communities. It also encourages communities to enlist support for juvenile justice and delinquency prevention and intervention efforts
by engaging the media as partners. The section concludes with an outline of public information efforts being planned by the Federal
Government and coordinated with national organizations to inform communities about what works to reduce juvenile delinquency and
violence. As youth violence has increased, the media have expanded national and local coverage of the problem, often using images
that build upon community fear. However, the media frequently overlook the more complicated messages about the causes of violence
and approaches to redress it, including the importance of community involvement in finding solutions. Public debate over prevention
program funding tells the tale: unless the public understands the effective strategies underlying prevention programs, communities will
face difficulties getting support and implementing many of these strategies. A dynamic public education campaign can herald the
service-oriented efforts of resilient young people who are improving safety in their communities and spotlight policymakers whose
decisions result in positive outcomes for youth. Most importantly, it can focus on what works, what does not work, and for whom,
when, and why. Translating data and research into straightforward language and providing this information to those who need it is,
therefore, an essential component of reducing youth violence and crime. Government and the media share important roles in this
process. In recent years, some media have spearheaded public education campaigns to address various social problems and have
disseminated information, for example, on the serious health risks of tobacco use and alcohol overconsumption. Government has
sounded the alarm about these and other health-related hazards, pushed for greater media responsibility, and offered guidance on
promising strategies to address the problems. Throughout this process, national organizations that directly serve teachers, police, and
local governments have been key partners in getting the message out.

Programs

1. Social Media as a crime reduction tool by dispatch 2018

Community Policing is about engaging and listening to your community and developing an appropriate crime reduction strategy
accordingly. There are many “tools” agencies can use to engage communities but none as unique and powerful as social media. Social
Media is often overlooked when it comes to community policing and crime reduction, but it should not be, in fact it should be an
integral part of your agencies overall communications strategy. A good social media program can have a significant impact on crime
as well. Sgt Jason Cullum of the Evansville Indiana Police Department states “the use of social media has helped us identify suspects
within minutes of an image being posted. The thought of being featured on a social media post is very unappealing to criminals and
especially our youth who truly understand the viral nature of social media.” The Hawthorne California Police Department has been
very active on social media for the last 8 years. HPD started out like many agencies did, by using Twitter. Twitter allowed our
department to disseminate information to the public like never before. We did not have to rely on traditional media anymore to get our
“message” out to the public. Twitter is great at putting information out (even with its 140-character limit), but not so great at us being
able to “listen” to our community. We started with Facebook in 2011, there were only a handful of police agencies using it at the time
and initially we used it much like Twitter to put information out to the public. The beauty of Facebook is the ease of use and the way
that photos can be easily shared on your page. The fact that Facebook postings could easily be responded to by the public provided a
fantastic platform for public “two ways” communication. Facebook was not however without its issues and presented a whole new set
of problems when dealing with anti-police “haters” and the 1st amendment. We learned to accept the good with the bad and began to
realize that 90 percent of the public supported our efforts on Facebook, and they began to defend us as well. Facebook has enabled us
to showcase our community, officers, and city in a positive light that WE controlled, we no longer had to hope the media “gets it
right.” Social Media continues to evolve, and we have learned that we must continue to evolve and control our image and brand and
message with each new platform such as Instagram and Snapchat. We learn the subtle nuances of each and target our message to the
specific user bases demographics. Some of the things we have learned through trial and error have become best practices for us at
HPD as well as some of the agencies around the world that we have helped in starting and crafting a social media presence. Here are
some best practices and ideas for your agency to help implement and craft a successful social media program. Don’t be afraid to be
“different”: Agencies such as Sarasota Florida, Pasco Washington and St Anthony Minnesota all have hugely successful social media
programs. They take smart but calculated risks and post content that is not the “typical” police type information, i.e. “this suspect is
wanted” “traffic alert at Main Street” postings. Successful social media programs humanize officers, show the community in a good
light as well as have a sense of humor because sometimes a photo of cops eating a donut is just funny, so go ahead and post it. Not
everyone will “like” you, understand and accept criticism online. Sometimes people just want a voice and to be heard. By showing
transparency your agency will be practicing procedural justice and helping to build trust in your community. Start small; don’t expect
social media success overnight, your social media presence will always be a work in progress. Consider starting on a single platform
such as Facebook or Instagram. Make sure your social media team understands the vision of what your agency wants to project for
each social media platform and understand the differences between Snapchat, Next-door and Facebook etc. and understand that they
are not the same, so the message should be tailored accordingly. Be responsive but don’t create an expectation that citizens can post a
message on social media and expect an immediate response. A general rule is never responded more than twice to a posting and don’t
get into “arguments” give the appropriate information and move on. Photos work wonders, take the extra time to craft good photos
and video. Don’t post out of focus photos or lots of “posed” shots. Selfies are great, people smile and laugh when they take selfies so
don’t be afraid of them. Don’t post too many photos, save some good ones for a rainy day. Empower and trust your social media team,
let them do what they do best and do not micromanage the social media accounts. “Stalk” other police social media accounts around
the world, there are some very good ones, and you will get some great ideas just from following them. So, if your agency does not
have a social media program, they need to seriously consider starting one because they are missing out on a great tool for community
policing and the ability to disseminate information and reduce crime. The COP’S Office is here to help your agency and can put you in
touch w experts to guide you through the process. Good luck and “see you” soon on social media.

2. Monitoring social media and technology use to prevent youth suicide and school violence by Bryan et. al, 2020

With suicide as the second leading cause of death for individuals between the ages of 10 and 34 and with mass school shootings
averaging once per year, schools are exploring ways to prevent this seemingly increase in youth suicide and other forms of youth
violence. School-based prevention initiatives such as social/emotional learning curricula, school-based mental health services, and
internal threat assessment protocols are becoming more prevalent. Along with these prevention efforts, increases in youth use of
technology and social media have created a market for social media monitoring companies that use algorithms to analyze youth social
media posts for threats of harm toward themselves or others. School districts contract with these social media monitoring companies
for assistance in identifying youth who may be at risk for violence. The purpose of this article is to describe one school district's
experience using social media monitoring programs as part of their comprehensive school violence prevention and mental health
promotion effort. The school district was alerted to many students who made suicidal and homicidal threats on social media and after
identifying those students, the students were able to receive referrals for mental health support.