Community Policing - Defining the Social Media Community

Someone recently asked me why LakelandPD engages in social media - things like Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc. I wanted to quickly reply with something like "why not?" but thought better of it. Still, it's a great question to consider.

The basic reason we engage in social media is because we are committed to community policing - a philosophy of engaging the community in a collaborative partnership to proactively solve neighborhood problems and improve our overall quality of life.

So what does that comment have to do with social media?

Contemporary police agencies are quickly realizing that social media is IS A COMMUNITY in and of itself as well as being a group that contains members from other communities in our area. Let me offer a further explanation.

One of the key elements to community policing is the need to identify what is a community. Here in our town, a community is more than just the entire city of Lakeland, and it is more than a collection of separate neighborhoods. Our city is filled with individual "communities" that identify with a common area, a specific social problem (for example, homelessness), common interests (military veterans), or other similarities (youth athletics or education). A community is not merely defined by a geographical boundary on a map but rather by things they have in common.

Using this definition, we try to reach out to all "communities" in our area to engage in mutual dialog. We believe social media is a rapidly expanding "community" in both our area of Lakeland and the global area of community policing. We're happy to join the discussions within social media outlets in an attempt to engage as many people as possible to help us solve problems and make our community a safe place to live, work, and raise a family.

- Asst Chief Bill LePere

Comments

[Michael Vallez]

Chief,

I this is a little cynical, but largely people who ask "why" are you involved in social media, just don't understand social media. This in no way makes their comments caustic, but they need to be educated on the value of social media and "why" it is so important to be in the conversation.

I truly think once people are educated in the benefits of social media they will begin to see and embrace the cultural communication change that is occurring around us.

Mike