In the past decades, citizens as well as police organizations increasingly realize the large potential of citizen capital in fighting crime and disorder It is a very broad concept, consisting of a large range of activities. These activities can be performed individually, in collaboration with…
From WhatsApp community groups to Bellingcat. The police feel citizens can play an important part in their investigative work. TNO researcher Arnout de Vries advises the police in The Netherlands on matters relating to citizen participation. Because investigations by citizens involve some…
Imagine: just got home from a party and it looks like you’ve been burgled. The traces left by someone trying to break in are clearly visible. Major adrenaline rush. You’re going to track down that burglar! But how do you do that? Well, with the Sherlock “citizen investigation” app developed by…
The world’s first true crime unsolved social investigation site (not operational yet). There are 200,000 unsolved murders in America since 1980. Forty Percent of the homicides in the United States go unsolved. In 1960, that number was only 10 percent. Crime Locker is the nation’s largest…
Around the end of last year I had an interview with the British citizen investigation initiative OPIT, the Online Predator Investigation Team. Brendan Collis from Derby has been doing this type of work for a few years, and he does this together with his wife. In the interview he uncovers what…
“Can the millions of people who have found or rekindled a passion for true crime, armchair sleuthing and internet investigation manage to enact real change? What if we gave them visualization tools, access to raw case data and files, and powerful evidence indexing – all for free?” In just a…
Bellingcatis an online platform for citizen investigative journalism. Eliot Higgins, known online as Brown Moses, became a frequently consulted weapons expert in the Syrian conflict in just two years and without specialist knowledge, just sitting behind his computer in Leicester. As a result of…
The topic Big Data is ‘hot’. Big Data can be used to make information more transparent and usable, to support decision making, and product and service innovations. In addition, we currently find ourselves in the middle of a process in which a new balance is sought between a government that…
Call Recorder Record your phone calls. Keep in mind that if you’re in a location that’snot considered a one-party consent state you’ll want to inform the caller of the recording. Free app Download:“AndroidiPhone:“iPhone GotYa! GotYa! takes a silent snapshot through the front facing camera of the…
Internet vigilante group Letzgo Hunting has been criticised for some of its efforts to expose paedophiles. What is this group and who’s behind it? Letzgo Hunting’s website currently just displays a sign saying “maintenance mode” with no details of this mysterious group’s activities. But on a…
Someone is murdered in Washington, DC every couple of days. If it’s someone famous (or rich), that news makes a splash. It’ll be on television and in the paper, paraded across websites and memorialized by the powerful. If the person isn’t famous, the news will be almost nowhere. In fact, it…
