The New York Times reported that police agencies are now using the same Web 2.0 tools as everyone else — sites like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and MySpace.
Last month, police in Auburn, Maine, posted images from a surveillance video on Facebook. Facebook members soon provided tips, and suspects were arrested and charged with burglary and criminal mischief.
Now Web services are being developed specifically to allow public and private investigative agencies to share information, and these tools are increasingly popular within law enforcement.
One service, called CrimeDex, is billed by its creators as a “Facebook for law enforcement.” A former police officer started the service in 2002 after growing frustrated with the wasted time investigators spent trying to determine whether other agencies were chasing the same suspects. CrimeDex is used by more than 1,000 law enforcement agencies and private businesses like banks and retail chains. For a monthly fee, members can submit information, photographs and videos related to possible crimes and make comparisons with data from agencies that may be seeing similar patterns or suspects. “It’s the digital equivalent of the old-fashioned Western sheriffs nailing a wanted poster to a tree,” the site’s developer said.
Another Law Enforcement 2.0 service, CrimeReports.com, is intended to increase the transparency of law enforcement agencies and strengthen their interaction with the public. They allow police agencies around the country to record instances of crime on a single nationwide map powered by Google. Citizens can visit the site too, and see a map of crimes in their neighborhood, peer across city lines to see crimes elsewhere, and sign up to receive regular e-mail alerts of all recorded criminal activity in their area. CrimeReports plans to add a neighborhood watch feature, so citizens can form groups on the service and send alerts and tips to participating police agencies.
And nationwide broadband would increase the speed of justice! But as we’ll find out in Part 2, sharing information with real-time internet speed can cause problems too.
Tags: Internet Speed