Policy Development: Use of Social Media in Law Enforcement

Policy Development Draft Assignment
Name
University
CJUS 520
Professor
November 20, 2022
Abstract
Social media sites can be used to conduct or instigate criminal activity. Law enforcement agencies must recognize the function and concept of social media sites, including how such resources and tools can be leveraged to mitigate, prevent, investigate, and respond to criminal activity. Many federal entities, including law enforcement agencies, are also utilizing social media platforms as an instrument to engage the public, including sharing information on crime patterns, updating citizenry on social events, or offering security tips to keep citizens safe. Law enforcement officers can abuse social media sites by using information sourced from such platforms as evidence without verifying its authenticity. In addition, police officers can use a personal account for law enforcement purposes, even when off-duty, thus causing legal and ethical concerns. Law enforcers can use social media for community cooperation and crime prevention efforts. This report evaluates police officers’ social media usage and the best practices in social media application, especially in creating strong police-community ties, thus creating increasingly peaceful communities. The paper also indicates that police officer’s social media usage should be geared at achieving crime prevention ends. It also includes a department policy outline for police officers’ social media use, especially for official instead of personal purposes.
Policy Development Draft Assignment
Law enforcement agencies can leverage social media opportunities in diverse dimensions, including community engagement and outreach, criminal investigation, intelligence development, and analytical assessments, among other vital routine functions. Social media policy should empower police to use tools consistent with applicable laws, agency policies, and community expectations. In addition, law enforcement personnel and agencies should acknowledge and use the available communication approaches to develop a connection to the communities and thus enhance security and social sustainability. This report evaluates issues related to law enforcement agencies’ use of social media, the use of social media by law enforcement agencies to enhance community cooperation and crime prevention, and best practices for police concerning using social media sites, and includes a departmental policy outline related to social media use.
Law Enforcement Abuse of Social Media
There is the potential that police officers could abuse social media, thus undermining their credibility as valid sources of evidence in a court case. Social media can be used as an impeachment evidence source within a case where the officer acts as the witness. While on duty, officers might post reckless statements describing their mood or feelings. For example, an officer might post: “feeling devious,” thus compromising their integrity and the criminal justice system (CJS). Although officers’ personal social media accounts might serve as critical evidence sources, such reckless posts undermine the pursuit of justice based on them (Tobin, 2020). In this context, the attorneys are likely to deny the police’ evidence citing a lack of credibility.
According to Global Justice Information Sharing Initiative (2013), police must always ensure that any information from social media sources undergoes evaluation to authenticate its confidence levels (content validity and source reliability). Information evaluation, either for criminal investigative or intelligence purposes, incorporates differences. Based on criminal intelligence, the police should evaluate the information to establish its reliability and validity, and products derived from such information must always include appropriate caveats. In specified circumstances, it might be challenging to confirm the validity of social media sources’ information (for example, a citizen subjects a tip concerning a YouTube video showing a robbery); nevertheless, that information might still be operationalized as potentially valid and archived as such. In a criminal investigation, social media-sourced information must be further assessed to ascertain its authenticity. For example, concerning a YouTube video depicting people allegedly robbing a convenience store, law enforcement officers should have the subpoena to establish the IP address that facilitates the uploading of the specific video and determine to whom the IP address was registered. Case law exists concerning social media information authentication obtained and used by law enforcement agencies. In Griffin v. Maryland 2011, the court of appeals held that MySpace pages were erroneously admitted as evidence because law enforcement agencies, including the police, had failed to prove their authenticity. This case demonstrated the need for police officers to validate social media-sourced information. Failure to do so can lead to unfair judgments and the inability of the courts to deliver justice to the victims and the alleged perpetrators (Global Justice Information Sharing Initiative, 2013). Social media remains a valuable information source for lead development as well as follow-up. However, law enforcement personnel must always validate and authenticate social media-captured information.
Social media resources’ accessibility and ease of use might influence how law enforcers use social media when not on official duties, including using personal accounts and equipment for official agency ends (Global Justice Information Sharing Initiative, 2013). The collected information might culminate into criminal leads, intelligence, or active investigations. In this context, social media application policy for law enforcement agencies should incorporate a clause addressing social media platforms’ information use to serve the agency’s official goals, especially when an officer is off-duty and uses a nonagency account for official law enforcement purposes. With heightened access to social media-sourced information, establishing criminal activities or subjects might be increasingly convenient. However, it is also necessary to establish proven information access and usage. For example, an intelligence officer working on gang-related crimes utilizes their personal Facebook to “follow” a topic expert in the gang identification an...