INSIDE the Lakeland Police Department

INSIDE LakelandPD - A Top Ten Blog

Our INSIDE LakelandPD blog was recently listed as one of the top ten police blogs by CareersinCriminalJustice.com. While that ranking was partially the result of how our blog comes up during keyword searches, it is nice to receive such recognition from the criminal justice profession for the content, open dialog, and flow of information that is the basis for our entire blogging efforts.

We currently read several of the other top ten blogs on the list because they are (in our opinion) the cream of the crop when it come to police blogs - it's rewarding to be listed with these other superior police department blogs.

And as always, we are grateful for everyone who reads our blog and follows us on Twitter and Facebook.

- Asst Chief Bill LePere 

Should the Police "Follow" You?

One of the many changes we are seeing with the emergence of social media is how virtual and actual relationships are established and maintained. These changes fit well into our community policing philosophy of partnerships with the community, in this case the social media community. We now have hundreds of followers, some from all over the country, who are interested in our media releases and informational blog postings. We are appreciative of their interest in LakelandPD.

But should we be "following" them?

For many people, the thought of the police following them (such as while driving down the road) generally produces panic, fear, and sweaty palms. And to now have the police follow you on Twitter or Facebook or via blogs, well, I wonder where should we draw the line between social interaction with the community and respect of one's personal space?

We follow a couple dozen entities on Twitter, mostly businesses or organizations in our community with whom we have a professional or personal relationship. Of course we follow numerous police agencies also to get ideas and keep up with what our peers are doing, but we do not automatically follow everyone who follows us. Some police agencies follow many more in their community under the auspices of maintaining a more open relationship with residents and businesses. The decision as to who we choose to follow is really on a case by case basis.

Now I realize that privacy is almost non-existent in the social media realm. We put stuff out there knowing others are likely going to see and read it, all with the realization that we can somewhat restrict who sees our posts, updates, and profiles on Twitter and Facebook.

So I ask this question to get a deeper understanding from our social media community - how would you react if you got notice that LakelandPD wanted to follow you on Twitter?

- Asst Chief Bill LePere

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