Law Enforcement Social Media: To Protect and Preserve - ArchiveSocial

---

A government technology Case Study | ArchiveSocial

FACEBOOK.COM/VINELANDPOLICE

®

Even though it already connects with its community through numerous outreach events, the Vineland Police Department values the use of social media as a communication tool and a way to broadly reach more people throughout the city.

Law Enforcement Social Media: To Protect and Preserve Maintaining Transparency on the Virtual Beat When a controversial incident caused a surge of traffic

on the Vineland Police Department’s social media pages in the spring of 2015, a spike in public information requests for the social media records followed predictably close behind. Fortunately, the officer responsible for producing the records had already replaced his time-consuming, manual retention process with automated archiving. Vineland, N.J., may be a young jurisdiction — formally incorporated in 1952 — but it’s growing fast, boasting the largest municipal area in the state at 69 square miles. With fertile land once deeply planted in grapes (hence the name), Vineland — equidistant from Philadelphia and Atlantic City — runs the gamut from farmland in the east to industry in the north. Sgt. Christopher Fulcher — responsible for community outreach in this diverse region — serves in the communications section of the Vineland Police Department (VPD) Services Division, and began his career there 19 years ago as a civilian dispatcher. The 180-staff unit is kept busy responding to the large growth in demand for general policing services and VPD-hosted community events such as “coffee with a cop,” the citizen police academy, a “Drive Sober” educational initiative and community block meetings. That outreach has been bolstered in the

last few years with a broad venture into social media: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr and YouTube. Fulcher praises the value of leveraging social media and maintaining an online presence to connect with citizens and share important information. The communication works both ways, too — Fulcher says citizens frequently offer valuable tips that help in pursuing criminal cases. “The ability to reach such a large portion of our population quickly and efficiently is a great benefit,” he says. “We also have a tip line integrated into a lot of social media, and a lot of worthwhile information has come through that has helped us.” Despite these benefits, Fulcher — who is also tasked with managing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests — was challenged with managing the large amount of information coming in through the various social media outlets. “The main challenge we faced with social media was managing the information, retaining it and reproducing it when needed.”

Time Imperative: Freedom of Information Act Requests

As with many cities, law enforcement receives the majority of Vineland’s FOIA requests or Open Public Records Act (OPRA) requests, as they’re known in New Jersey. The number of requests rise and fall by season

and event, rolling in from individuals, attorneys, public defenders, the media, watchdog organizations and more. Manually retaining social media — post by post, tweet by tweet — to be prepared for these requests is tedious and inefficient. In the spring of 2015, VPD experienced a spike in such requests, and Fulcher — responsible for responding to such requests within seven days — found himself digitally drowning. Facebook posts alone had to be identified, opened, expanded into full threads, pasted into a Word document and then converted into a PDF. This method, used by many jurisdictions, isn’t just time consuming — it’s prone to error. “I can sum it up in one word: nightmare,” says Fulcher. “I have a lot of other responsibilities and this nearly 15-step process was getting out of hand. I really needed to find something that would assist in managing it while protecting us by having information backed up and reproducible.” Fulcher started researching social media records retention services and came across ArchiveSocial, a solution that automatically and continuously captures the social media postings between an organization and the public. These records are captured in an authentic format complete with metadata and can be compiled into a PDF report. The solution can even reach back in time, securing social media information from an organization’s first posts. Data retention is effortless and reproduction is swift, making compliance with state and federal retention laws simple and rock solid. Fulcher says, “The two-pronged approach — retention and reproduction on demand — is important, because while retaining all of this information is great, if I can’t easily get it out to people when they’re asking for it, it doesn’t do me much good. I can email or post it usually the same day I receive the request — often in minutes — literally saving hours for every request.” That swift response time keeps VPD compliant and promotes e-discovery and transparency. “I can’t even begin to explain how much simpler and easier it’s made things,” Fulcher says. “It’s not even something I have to think about now.”

Social Media as a

Police Tool

Law enforcement utilizes social media in many of the same ways as any business — with some marked differences. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and even Pinterest can give police departments a useful PR boost. The open nature of social media helps show the myriad ways police provide service and offers a conversational platform for sharing and responding to information in an informal manner. It also helps fight crime — whether through tips shared by the public or using information gleaned from criminals who post about their actions. A survey from the International Association of Chiefs of Police in 2013 found that more than 73 percent of participants — representing 500 agencies in 48 states — reported social media improved police-community relationships, while approximately 80 percent said it helped them solve crimes.1

34

A different study in 2014 OF LAW found that 34 percent of ENFORCEMENT law enforcement agencies AGENCIES now notify the public of NOW NOTIFY THE PUBLIC OF crimes via social media, CRIMES VIA SOCIAL MEDIA 29 percent elicit crime tips this way and 67 percent believe information from social media helps complete investigations faster.2

%

Lt. Cindy Kilgore of Michiana Crime Stoppers in Indiana says that, for her organization, not only have the number of arrests increased from using social media, investigators are saving substantial time looking for suspects. Kilgore says, “Just imagine posting a photo, say, for the 3,000 that are on our Facebook page, and who then share that photo on their Facebook page, and how drastically, exponentially that photo is getting seen by more and more people. It’s been incredible.”3

ENDNOTES 1. http://www.berkeleyside.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/2013SurveyResults.pdf 2. http://www.lexisnexis.com/risk/insights/law-enforcement-social-media.aspx 3. http://www.wndu.com/home/headlines/Crime-Stoppers-finding-social-media-effective-in-identifying-suspects-317608251.html

Sample an archive of your own social media at archivesocial.com

Sponsored by:

© 2015 e.Republic. All rights reserved.