Two ways that Twitter can, literally, save lives
Two ways that Twitter can, literally, save lives. The Natalia Project from @crdefenders provides human rights’ workers with an alarm bracelet that communicates their exact location in times of danger via social media. Volunteers sign up to follow the workers on Twitter and can instantly raise the alarm and bring public pressure to bear.
Social Media and Criminal Justice Policy Exchange
This blog post is a straight plug to encourage readers to engage in a new initiative launched jointly by: Professor Paul Senior of Sheffield Hallam University who tweets as @yorkhull and Associate Professor Julian Buchanan of the Institute of Criminology at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand – @julianbuchanan They have set up a series of […]
Solving crime with social media
I have posted regularly about the ways in which the police are increasingly using social media, not just to engage with local communities but to gather intelligence and pursue investigations. The iPlod generation is mainly self-taught but developing a more sophisticated approach each month. However, the UK is still playing catch up with the use […]
How to mug off your smartphone thief
Earlier this year I wrote a post about how the “Find my iPhone” app had helped British Transport Police both recover a stolen iPhone and arrest the thief. At the end of the post, I speculated that in the future smartphones would be able to: “scan any new user’s retina to confirm it has been […]
Advise, Assist and Unfriend
Probation officers use social media for many different reasons. Promoting the work of the service. Building alliances with local commissioners and other stakeholders. Discussing best practice around desistance etc. Keeping up to date with criminal justice policy and research. Recently, they’ve also started to monitor high risk offenders via their use of Facebook in particular. […]
Can I get a witness? Smartphone app crime prevention
iwitness is the latest smartphone application promising a technological solution to crime. There has been a recent surge in the development of really useful smartphone apps. @reasondigital collated four life-saving examples last week. @Uturntraining has developed an app that helps prevent deaths by heroin overdose. Last week, I blogged about a new app developed by the New […]
Stop and Search and Replay
Stop and search has always been a controversial issue in the UK and friction point between police and the communities they serve. Indeed several commentators cited it as a potential contributory factor to last year’s riots. The New York equivalent “Stop-and-Frisk” has proved equally contentious with almost 700,000 people questioned on the city’s streets last […]
Inside Twitter: Tweeting from prison
My recent series on how to make the most of Twitter for workers in the criminal justice system created a decent amount of interest among police, probation and legal staff but very little from those working in prison. This is entirely unsurprising since people inside generally don’t have access to mobile phones or the internet. […]
Should the police search out crimes on social media?
There was an interesting article in Saturday’s Guardian which explored the issue of whether the police should get involved in cases of abuse on Twitter. This whole issue has received a lot of attention and discussion in the wake of the case of Liam Stacey who was jailed for 56 days after he posted racist […]
Criminals face an uncertain future
Facewatch is the latest online development in the law-enforcement v criminals high-tech arms race with cops and robbers adapting new digital techniques to outwit each other. New technologies present new opportunities for law enforcement agencies to catch and prosecute criminals – from Smartphones that can report themselves stolen to the increasingly sophisticated police use of social media for gathering […]
Don’t forget to cancel your milk, papers and Facebook updates
New technologies present new opportunities for law enforcement agencies to catch and prosecute criminals – from Smartphones that can report themselves stolen to the increasingly sophisticated police use of social media for gathering intelligence, investigating crimes and establishing evidence. Of course, the same technologies present new opportunities for criminals too and the balance of power […]
ET phone home: Smartphones and crime prevention
One of the downsides about any form of new technology is that it is inevitably expensive and attractive to thieves. Over the years, burglars have focused on Video Recorders, DVD players and, now, Flatscreen TVs. Car thieves have moved from car radios via CD players on to SatNavs, although even those are no longer […]
