The first crowd-sourced arrest?

Sydney police force have recently announced they’re ramping up their use of social media in a bid to help catch more criminals. They’re specifically using a youtube channel and Twitter account to source recognition of suspects, through posting CCTV footage on youtube and twitpics on Twitter, asking ‘have you seen this person?’.

Now we’ve seen some pretty impressive uses of social media, from watching live new stories unravel live on Twitter to mapping flu trends on Google, but this is certainly impressive and takes social media to a whole new level. This is the kind of stuff we want to see when we talk about ‘social media of the future’, looking at the thousands of people online and finding a way to turn this into good. The Sydney Police Force have successfully recognised that the viral aspect of social media could prove invaluable to their work.

This is no small step and shouldn’t be overlooked or dismissed as gimmicky and is an important next phase for social media. The Sydney Police Force aren’t the first to use social media however. The West Midlands police force are also using social media tools, including a Facebook page and Youtube channel which are both regularly updated with useful content and video demonstrations.

They even have ‘pup idol’ videos which are, quite frankly, too cute to handle..

While it’s important that police forces are using these tools in a bid to gather information, they also serve another purpose, that is showing a human side and a personality. For official organisations, especially the forces, this an important benefit of social media as it makes them ultimately more approachable.

Unlike the title of my post suggests, it would obviously be difficult to prove if there ever could be a crowd-sourced arrest, but the fact that some police forces are starting to use social media is an important step in openin up communication channels.