Abstract:

Today, security forces make effective use of social media in the fight against crime and criminals. Empirical evidence form Europe suggests that 50% of police officers use social media in their professional lives and 93.5% of them had an experience of social media in their professional lives. Police forces have the chance to use social media and accomplish their functions more efficiently in countries with more common place usage of social media. Access to the content and correspondences on social media is considered as an invaluable opportunity for crime prevention and arresting offenders. By attending relevant trainings and raising knowledge on power, scope, and limitation of social media by the involved parties, the added value of social media on policing practices will be promoted. However, research regarding the police sector is mainly focusing on cybercrime, more specifically hacking attempts and the spread of malware and viruses. Considerably less attention is paid to emerging risks going along with the implementation of social media, and the possibilities social media offers to the police, their tasks fulfilment and their performance.

The paper will present findings on research from Austria, Germany, and Turkey in 2014 within the LLP project SOMEP – Solving Crime Through Social Media: Improving Vocational Competences in Security Sector (11/2013 – 04/2015) conducted with the aim to identify current approaches in the use of social media, in order to deduce learning needs for police officers. In detail, the paper will discuss i) the level of acceptance of social media, ii) the purposes of the use and main activities on social media, iii) the level of knowledge and experiences police officers have related to the opportunities and threats of social media, and iv) the perceived usability and effectiveness of social media as well as its potential in future. Further, it suggests possible social media applications which might be used for policing purposes. Finally, national policies in Austria, Germany, and Turkey are comparatively presented and learning needs with focus on e-learning deduced.

Keywords:

Social Media, Police, vocational training, needs analysis.