Tags are keywords. I put tags on every post to help you find the content you want. Tags may be people (Dominic Raab, say), organisations (The Howard League, PRT), themes (women offenders, homelessness) or specific items (heroin, racial disparity, ROTL). If you’re looking to research a particular issue, they can be invaluable.
Finally Friday is an occasional series of posts which look at the lighter side of life. In particular, I delight in rounding up examples of criminals whose own stupidity is the main reason they were brought to justice. There have been a couple of distinctive examples over the last month featuring drug dealers and reckless drivers who incriminated themselves in ways only available in the digital age.
Social media – and Twitter in particular – is becoming the mainstream way of locating missing people. I was slightly surprised when I reviewed five UK police Facebook pages recently and found that a third of the most popular posts related to missing persons. It’s no surprise that police use social media for this purpose though. I’ve come across two successful outcomes in the last month.
A detailed look at police use of Twitter.
A great infographic from BrightPlanet harvesting information from the recent 1st Global Police Tweetathon which used the #poltwt hashtag.
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.
When should you follow someone on Twitter? When most of us start tweeting, we follow anyone and everyone. Anyone that crops up in our friends’ timeline and definitely anyone who follows us. After a while, though, it pays to start becoming a bit more discerning. There’s only so many people you can realistically follow. At least if you want to actually read what they Tweet. Some of my best virtual friends don’t follow me because I tweet too much for their taste.
Greater Manchester police have taken their conversation with the communities they serve to the next level by inviting in local residents to spend a day with police and act as community reporters.
This is the eighth in a series of posts based on the recent COMPOSITE report on police use of social media across Europe. Hold the
This post was inspired by a blog by Paul Taylor of Bromford Housing – follow him on @PaulBromford. It’s his slideshare you can see further
This is the final in a short series of posts on a great new book by Howard Rheingold: “Net Smart”. I recommended you find time to read
This is the fourth in a short series of posts on a great new book by Howard Rheingold: “Net Smart”. I recommended you find time to read
In the last post of my how to get the most out of Twitter series, I looked at assessing the impact of your Tweets. I discussed a
Helen Grimbleby, @Crimematters, is a community safety and domestic violence specialist with a well established and keenly followed blog. Tweets by @crimematters Why I
