Cops baby-step into social media

“Too reluctant to pick up the phone and dial ‘15’ to launch a complaint against an eye-witnessed street crime in the past few minutes”-–the maddening feeling sounds familiar? Then how about interacting with cops on facebook and twitter?
After corporations and politicians, the cops in Islamabad are all set to dive into the cosmos of social media. The notion of calling the police on the emergency number has long turned out to be old-fashioned. Pursuant to the current trend, when people come across a suicide bomb explosion or a big fire, the first thing they do is to update their facebook status or upload a picture or tweet it and the last thing that knocks their mind is reporting police about the incident.
Considering this, law enforcement organizations ought to line their nest to maintain active presence on social media sites to be able to get the insights about criminal cases, this is more than ever meaningful in situations where cases are not actually reported as is the case in our country where people are reluctant to report criminal cases because of the so-called “thanay wala” mentality.
No other government department is subjected to public ridicule and abuse more than the police department. Policemen are seen by the public not as friends but as sharks and oppressors.
According to a public opinion poll by Berlin based non-profit group Transparency International (TI) released in July 2013, police and government agencies are the major corrupts in Pakistan with 86 percent, followed by political parties with 84 percent, the parliament with 76 percent, medical services and judiciary with 66 percent, the education system with 64 percent and the NGOs with 62 percent. The survey reassures that the people of Pakistan have least trust in police forces and the government.
Even though the overall image of police in Pakistan is viewed as hostile, Islamabad police is weighed to be more sophisticated by people as the publication released by Pakistan Crime Monitor in April 2013 referred Punjab as the highest crime reporting region, while regarding the potential reasons for lesser number of FIRs registered in other areas as unjust judicial system, lack of public trust in police and difficulty in accessing the police. In this context, there is some optimism that the use of social media by the cops in Islamabad can rally round in transforming the mindsets of public at large as well as ensuring friendly interaction between police forces and the victims of criminal activities.
“Departments that create a presence on social media sites open a new door of communication with the general public.” Given the ‘Pakistani sarkari mindset’ mentality that pays no heed to voices of public, few people try to fathom the reasons for their poor performance where all the ills and blame are heaped at the doors of police alone. The solution to this attitude lies in two-sided interface being provided by the social networking sites.
Not only that social media can pave the way for police officers to interact with people for disseminating information to the public and getting recommendations and feedbacks from them to improve policing, it can also help them investigation crimes by taking input from the people. Imagine how easy it will be to locate a criminal if the photograph labeled as ‘Wanted’ goes viral on the facebook.
Social sites are effective ways to disseminate crime alerts, investigation updates, safety alerts and to counter propaganda. In this regard, Pakistani cops baby-stepping into the social media is a step forward in refining the tarnished crime complaint processes as well as mending the wrecked image of police community.