Learn how Law Enforcement uses the media in their investigations.

Introduction

The relationship between law enforcement and social media has changed drastically. This is because social media is always changing. People nowadays post more personal stuff on the internet, and almost everyone has a form of social media. This is when law enforcement comes in.

Law Enforcement Using Social Media

All crimes are somehow connected to social media. whether it be because the victim uses social media, a witness uses social media, or the criminal uses social media. Law enforcement uses social media to help solve crimes. They do this by monitoring social media and looking at what people post. A school shooter might post about wanting to shoot up the school. Law enforcement will use social media to help them catch the kid before the shooting happens, saving lots of lives.

Mass media

Law enforcement also uses mass media. If they need help finding a missing person, they will ask the news to give a picture to the public so they can find the person. Not only this, but the mass media also posts about closed or ongoing investigations. This can help, or sometimes damage the investigations.

Being not so helpful

The news media might have good intentions when covering investigations of law enforcement, however it can hurt the investigation. Covering certain stories can either create copy cats, or inspire other people to commit crimes.

Copy cats

Copy cats can really hurt an investigation. A copy cat is when one person commits the same crime multiple times, but with different victims. Let’s say that there was a murderer rapist who would rape then kill the victims, but left a white rose at the crime scene. A copy cat might want to do the same thing, making the officers think that it’s the same person committing the crime, meanwhile they are actually looking for two criminals.

Finding inspiration

With the mass media covering these cases, some people might be inspired by the violence they see. An example would be how the Sandy Hook school shooter found inspiration in the Columbine school shooting. He said he could relate to the boys because they were bullied and alienated by their classmates.

How people use social media to help

People create accounts to help law enforcement solve cases. One of these is from the social media platform reddit. A subreddit called the Reddit Bureau of Investigations helps people solve crimes.

How helping can create chaos

The subreddit was originally created to help find the Boston bombers. What happened was that they falsely accused a student who was missing. The family of the student got nasty hate mail and phone calls. The student was found dead, and it was ruled a suicide unrelated to the witch hunt that the subreddit had created.