Social media empowers citizens to perform activities that fall within the range of police work and the work of other organisations dealing with public security. As modern Sherlock Holmes citizens assist the police and go beyond. They investigate crimes, identify suspects, form vigilante groups, hunt paedo-criminals and report on crimes.
The goal of the event was to discuss the opportunities and challenges of DIY Policing and its relevance for public security today and in future. Selected participants at this workshop were representatives of law enforcement agencies, the public, security planners and researchers throughout Europe. They gained a deeper understanding of the opportunities and challenges of DIY Policing, exchanged best practices, sketched future solutions and developed input for roadmaps and policy agenda?s.? Others not able to be present, followed the event on Twitter, and made our workshop trending topic in the Netherlands and Germany.
Many participants recognized the power of social networks and crowdsourcing for improving intelligence and investigations. Others saw opportunities for ?policing the police?: holding the police accountable and thereby eventually improve their legitimacy and quality of services.? All participants were convinced that online DIY Policing will change the future of policing. One of the participants said ?Kodak was destroyed by Instagram. If police wants to survive DIY Policing they need to transform instead of asking the public to change?.
Want to know more?
Reports on the workshop will be compiled by the project?s research team and will be made available on the project?s website. Follow us on Twitter @MEDIA4SEC or join the MEDIA4SEC Community on LinkedIn to stay tuned and join in the ongoing discussions.
For a description of the State of The Art Review of DIY Policing read the chapter in the report below: