Final Research Paper
December 15, 2022
Criminal Justice Research
Crim 3300-03
Group:
Melanie Carreto
Cory Hayford
Jacqueline Solis
Monica Araujo
Introduction
This research project is important to study because, when it comes to police and
social media, it is an excellent way to interact with the community. Social media is a
great tool to use to enhance community policing. One instrument in agencies'
investigative tool boxes for generating leads and gathering data about prospective
suspects is social media. It is essential because no federal laws explicitly regulate how
law enforcement agencies use information from social media sites. Their capacity to
acquire or use specific information from social media companies policies. The social
media policies of law enforcement agencies and the criminal procedure laws.
Anyone—including law enforcement—can view content that users publish on social
media networks without audience limitations and a court order. However, the audience
that can view some of the material that people share on social media may be limited due
to user preference or platform regulations. This can be unreliable for law enforcement
because of the inconsistency.
Another reason we believe that social media is essential for law enforcement is
that Social media has been seen as a tool that law enforcement agencies can employ to
strengthen community policing and improve public relations. Law enforcement agencies
use Twitter to update the public on the progress of an investigation, defuse tension and
solicit help, correct inaccurate information in the news, and beg for restraint from the
crowd when tweeting information from police scanners. It showed the degree of
involvement and trust a community and department may achieve online. Federal law
enforcement agencies have used several social media sites to communicate information,
including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and others. Some
departments and organizations have created regulations addressing how to interact with
the public via social media.
Literature Review
Social media has expanded in promoting communication and sharing content online,
moderated and unmoderated user-generated content, as interpersonal interactions continue to
change. Social media has been used by law enforcement to aid in their operations. Law
enforcement uses social media to exchange information and collect information to support
investigations. In 2021, it was predicted that more than 70% of American adults will have used
social media, a significant rise from the 5% of individuals who were thought to use social media
in 2005. In a similar vein, the Urban Institute (Urban) and the International Association of Chiefs
of Police conducted a survey of law enforcement organizations in 2016 (Finklea,2022). Social
media is "becoming an increasingly popular medium that law enforcement agencies employ,"
according to their use of it. Law enforcement agencies use this technology to interact with the
public and acquire information for investigations. In the Urban and IACP poll, participants said
they utilize social media for various things, with public safety alerts being the most popular
application (91%). They also mentioned using social media for recruitment and applicant vetting
(58%), public relations and alerting the public to non-crime-related issues (86%), gathering
crime tips (76%), tracking public sentiment (72%), gathering intelligence for investigations
(70%), and community outreach and citizen engagement (89%) (Finklea,2022).
Additionally, 60% of respondents from the organization said they had contacted a social
service. Media company to request data to be used as proof. Particularly in the wake of
high-profile occurrences like the attack on the U.S. On January 6, 2016, there was more focus on
how law enforcement may access and use specific information on social media platforms to aid
in investigating and preventing criminal conduct (Finklea, 2022). It gives a general overview of
how law enforcement can use social media to interact with the public and assist in acquiring data
and proof as part of its investigative responsibilities.
Research Question
Our research question is: How do police agencies use social media to capture criminals?
We expect to find written text that leads officers to arrest criminals because we want to see what
written text leads to substantial evidence. To answer our research question, we analyzed various
posts from social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We analyzed posts
on LAPD, BHPD, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook pages. We looked at the comment section of
the selected post. We were mainly looking for posts related to capturing criminals. For our
research, we have chosen only pictures and not videos.
Research Design
The type of research design we used for this content analysis was non-experimental
because we were not doing actual experiments. It is the main cross-sectional. The time frame we
selected is ( posts from Jan 2021-Dec 2021). The sampling entailed drawing information
between January 2021 and September 2022, roughly when life came back to normalcy from
Covid-19. Five concepts were measured for content analysis. Our measures included post,
community relations/interaction, department outreach, collaboration, and feedback. Different
levels of measurement, including nominal and ordinal, were used to examine the content. To
operationalize our thoughts and gather data, we applied seven research questions to each post:
1.
When was this post made?
2.
How many comments does the post have?
0-20
21-50
51- 100
101 or more
1.
Does the police agency respond to followers? (If yes, answer question 4)
YES
NO
1.
What is the conversation between the police agency and the commenter about?
2.
Does the police department initiate collaboration with the community?
YES
NO
1.
What does the department ask from the community?
Donations
Help in an investigation
Recommendations
Advertisement
Nothing
Other
1.
What is the overall tone of the comments?
Positive
Negative
Neutral
No comments
In contrast to community relations, which focused on interactions between law
enforcement and commenters, image content explained what was shown in the post. The number
of comments and whether the agency answered questions or comments in response to a picture
or caption of an Instagram post served as interaction indicators. Collaboration was defined as a
relationship in which there was established reciprocal communication between law enforcement
and the community. Therefore, we looked at how many posts made by law enforcement resulted
in conversations with Instagram users while also noting the purposes for which the department
seeks out community outreach. Finally, feedback shows how the community perceives an
agency, whether that perception is positive, wrong, or neutral, depending on the general opinion
of the comments' substance.
Sample
Through the use of Instagram, and Twitter, the sample population for this study project
generalizes the connection between the community and law enforcement. The five largest police
agencies in the United States we used to select the sampling period. We chose LAPD, BHPD,
and FBI, because they are one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the United States. The
name of each city and the word "Instagram" were then entered into Google to confirm that the
chosen Instagram account was legitimate and run by that city's police agency. The keywords
include "police use social media to look for suspects." The sampling we entailed was drawing
information between January 2021 and September 2022. One sampling method was used in this
research study: Simple random selection through a snowball approach. We decided to use this
approach because it would ensure that all segments targeted in the study were accounted for. The
snowball sampling approach helped us in finding samples quickly.
With this approach, it would be easy to achieve a representative sample by ensuring that
each segment produces a given amount of information for the study. For social media, the
approach would be to explore all the posts regarding law enforcement appealing for public help
to pursue criminals. To keep track of our samples, we created a system to collect and store your
sample in Google Drive. Overall one strength of simple random sampling is its simplicity.
Secondly, it is bias-free as it does not contain any favoritism when choosing the sample.On the
other hand, it requires a vast pool of resources and a list of the population from where the
random sampling will be undertaken. The method is also time and cost-consuming. In various
circumstances, bias might still occur.
Measures
For our measurement, we analyzed the posts and comments on Twitter LAPD with no
additional time for observations, and an experiment was required for the procedure of data
collection in response to our research question. By using a cross-sectional design, we were able
to gather information about the LAPD. Five concepts were measured for content analysis. Our
measures included image content, community relations/interaction, collaboration, department
outreach, and feedback. The content was analyzed utilizing several levels of measurement, such
as nominal and ordinal. We applied seven research questions to our post to operationalize our
concepts and collect data. Starting with the date of the post, how many comments, if it was a
negative, neutral, or positive post or comment, what kind of post the police were enforcing, and
if the police responded.
Data Collection and Analysis Techniques
The data collection came from law enforcement and social media (to update the
community and capture any person committing a crime on their post). We did the coding
procedures based on a Google Forms sheet. In the form, we gathered our questions from the
sample storage we did, where we gathered all 60 Twitter posts into one folder. It allowed us to
pick our questions regarding the post of our selection, and we were all individually able to record
our data on what we saw on the Twitter post. As a group, we all came to similar and different
conclusions regarding our response based on the post. Nothing that we all had was the same to
various measures in the coding process. We did not use tie-breakers to establish and ensure
inter-coder reliability.
Results
We analyzed 60 Twitter posts in our research by observing the photos, comments, and
dialogue between the police department and the community. Our research finding indicated that
out of 0-20 words, only 77.8% of people commented. On posts that had 21-50 comments, only
22.2% commented. Most posts had less than 51-100 words, consisting of 0-20 comments or
21-50 comments. On each of our posts, 100% of the agencies respond to the comments.
Regarding the police department initiating collaboration with the community, 77.8% of the
community collaborated with officers to help find criminals. 22.2% of the community did not
help with investigations. As we analyzed the comment section, we wanted to see the tone of how
the community responded. 66.7% of the comments were neutral, 22.2% were negative, and
11.1% were no comments. From our analysis, we concluded that police departments' use of
social media to capture criminals is effective. Our findings show that people within the
community help law enforcement find criminals through social media. Even though the
comments did not reach more than 100, law enforcement using social media is still effective.
how the community responded. 66.7% of the comments were neutral, 22.2% were negative, and
11.1% were no comments. From our analysis, we concluded that police departments' use of
social media to capture criminals is effective. Our findings show that people within the
community help law enforcement find criminals through social media. Even though the
comments did not reach more than 100, law enforcement using social media is still effective.
Discussion
As we conclude our final research, law enforcement using social media on social media
turns out to be successful. They inform the community of what is happening around their
neighborhood and involve them as if they see anything out of the ordinary to be reported. It is a
team effort that helps to bring crime rates down and consists of the community to help put these
crimes to an end. Our findings in the research are conclusive about how social media is effective.
Still, it did have some research limitations when we dug deeper to see if any sampling would be
biased or invalid. The limitation of the research in this study that we did is that it is social media.
We concluded that social media creates research limitations in the comment section because
people can put false information that can be misleading when solving a crime or even comment
without thinking about the consequences it could lead to. Another one is when using social
media. Posts are uploaded and removed at times. They can be deleted for specific reasons made
to the law enforcement discretion, which sometimes leaves crimes unanswered and people
wondering what happened. Another limitation was that when using social media to tell the public
about a crime that has occurred, some information is not included, not all data is provided for
people to be informed, nor is it confirmed that it had been solved in some cases, leaving people
clueless. One of the strengths of this research was gathering all these social media posts. We
were able to see how active law enforcement is when it comes to updating the community. They
post from kidnapping, robbery, murder, amber alerts, and hit-and-run. They constantly provide
information that is important for people to know and be aware of. The strength behind this is
how law enforcement protects people. Even though social media gives them valuable
information that can save lives, future research should consider how information is only found
when you dig deep into it because there is always more to uncover when researching. It is much
research to be found, and there are things to consider that will only sometimes get the answers
you are looking for.
Appendix
We made google forms, sample storage, and coding charts for our study. In a single
Google Spreadsheet, we recorded every step of the research process, including the formulation of
the research topic, measures, content analysis, research design, and preliminary coding results.
We made a table in a different Google Docs spreadsheet with the 60 Twitter posts. The group
members could examine images from various police departments thanks to sample storage. We
entered our responses into the Google Form based on what we noticed in the postings and
comments of the police agencies from LAPD, BHPD, and FBI made up our sample elements.
The group members were assigned responsibilities while conducting the research. The group
members were assigned responsibilities while conducting the research. The
coordinator/communicator- Organizes group meetings via email/text/etc., sets group deadlines
for completing parts of the assignment, and reminds people of missing parts. Submits
assignments on behalf of the group. (Monica ) First draft- Types of the first draft of the
assignment, including attempting to answer the questions based on the group discussion about
the assignment. (Melanie) Editor- Reviews the first draft, makes edits and suggestions and asks
for the rest of the group's input for any areas of confusion. It also confirms that all parts of the
assignment are met. (Cory) Floater- this person supports the other roles depending on what is
needed for the assignment. This typically means they help with the first draft or edits. May also
be responsible for an individual component (such as an article summary or setting up a coding
form) (Jacqueline).
Link/attachment to Final coding instrument (i.e Google Form or file)
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1tiAKDrIDFYMxZz5Dd72A9N7NfuTbpw6Wsqmr9Td
eDiQ/edit?ts=636c7f60
Link/attachment with a list of sample elements
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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1rFpFRuS_kcZeIlxZRyyl_KBzPyiOeM8D27M4
MmLPeXg/edit?usp=sharing
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