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“Show this thread”: policing, disruption and mobilisation through Twitter. An analysis of UK law enforcement tweeting practices during the Covid-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT: Crisis and disruption are often unpredictable and can create opportunities for crime. During such times, policing may also need to meet additional challenges to handle the disruption. The use of social media by officials can be essential for crisis mitigation and crime reduction. In this paper, we study the use of Twitter for crime mitigation and reduction by UK police (and associated) agencies in the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic. Our findings suggest that whilst most of the tweets from our sample concerned issues that were not specifically about crime, especially during the first stages of the pandemic, there was a significant increase in tweets about fraud, cybercrime and domestic abuse. There was also an increase in retweeting activity as opposed to the creation of original messages. Moreover, in terms of the impact of tweets, as measured by the rate at which they are retweeted, followers were more likely to ‘spread the word’ when the tweet was content-rich (discussed a crime specific matter and contained media), and account holders were themselves more active on Twitter. Considering the changing world we live in, criminal opportunity is likely to evolve. To help mitigate this, policy makers and researchers should consider more systematic approaches to developing social media communication strategies for the purpose of crime mitigation and reduction during disruption and change more generally. We suggest a framework for so doing.

SUBMITTER: Nikolovska M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7577359 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Objective: Law enforcement officers often have contact to persons who show symptoms of mental disorders. Adequately designed training is necessary for developing the best possible practices in policing when coming into contact with mentally ill people, and may help to expand their general knowledge on mental disorders. To achieve a sustainable implementation of training content in daily policing work, the acceptance and proactive integration of methods by the training participants is essential. Method: This study investigates an exemplary modular training curriculum based on a survey with 2,228 German police officers (28.2% female, 71.8% male) concerning their needs and challenges when coming into contact with persons with mental disorders. This empirical end-user driven approach was used to adapt existing training concepts to the current needs and interests of law enforcement personnel in order to maximize compliance. Results: The training program draft includes basic modules which are intended to be of direct interest to all police officers, such as mental disorders with high policing relevance, encountering suicidal patients, (non-directive) communication and de-escalation skills, and mental hygiene in policing. They are arranged in more specialized modules that address specific target group audiences within police forces and the training curriculum provides information about genuine risks and self-protection, trauma sensitivity, and interaction with children and victims among other contents. The self-selectable, modular, and empirically-based continued training program also includes an introduction to local mental health service professionals and networks, trialogue sequences, and situational role play scenarios. Conclusion: Due to frequent contact law enforcement officers have to mentally ill people, improved training designed to maximize knowledge and the integration of trained methods is necessary. Gaining acceptance and proactive support by trainees is ensured through end-user driven implementation of specialized and differentiated up-to-date training programs. Our results showcase how police officers' perspectives on persons with mental illnesses is a main aspect that can and should be used to encourage training course designs.

Project description:BackgroundSocial media plays a major role in the daily life of adolescents and has become highly interesting for healthcare research as well. The aim of this study was to explore the social perception of orthodontic-related posts on Twitter and Instagram by young adults.Methods401 orthodontic-related posts were collected during a 30-day period and categorized with regard to specific characteristics - their content and the social networking site (SNS) being used as well as the presence or absence of a selfie. In order to investigate the social perception of these posts, 42 young adults rated the emotional states of the SNS users using the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM)-Tool. A total of 4211 poster-rater observations pertaining to the three SAMs dimensions pleasure, arousal and dominance were analyzed by using linear and multinomial logistic regression analyses.ResultsThe investigated characteristics of the collected posts had significant effects on the perceived emotional state of the SNS users. Besides significant SNS-associated differences, there were also effects that were independent of the SNS being used: Receiving orthodontic appliances was more often associated with rather negative emotions (p < 0.001), while users who posted about the removal of such braces were more often perceived as joyful (p < 0.001). Interestingly, users whose posts contained selfies with visible braces were perceived as significantly more positive and stronger in comparison to users who did not post a picture of themselves (p < 0.05).ConclusionThis research gives insights into the social perception of orthodontic-related posts on SNS. While users' emotional states were perceived highly differential on both SNS, orthodontic-related content also revealed significant effects on social perception. Because selfies with visible braces were associated with positive feelings by young adults, a modern and SNS-related way of coping with a temporary supposed impairment like fixed orthodontic appliances might have been revealed through this research.

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“Show this thread”: policing, disruption and mobilisation through Twitter. An analysis of UK law enforcement tweeting practices during the Covid-19 pandemic

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