Facebooking For Great Justice

Attempts by police to involve civilians in crime prevention are nothing new, such as the various neighborhood watches. “If you see something, say something.”  Now, Sheriff Al Lamberti of Broward County, Florida, has taken the traditional community outreach to Facebook.

Besides event announcements, virtual campaigning, and routine PSAs, Sheriff Lamberti’s fan page posts information about crime suspects and ongoing crime sprees. Responses from Lamberti’s 10,000+ fans have enabled the police to track down perpetrators in a matter of days, saving a huge amount of time and resources.

Law enforcement agencies throughout the country suffer from limited resources, which often results in crimes going uninvestigated or unprosecuted. Not all of these crimes can be called relatively minor, either. An extreme example is the City of Topeka’s refusal to prosecute domestic violence cases. An increased civilian involvement in tracking down criminals and preventing other crimes, however minor, increaseS the effectiveness of law enforcement agencies. Facebook seems to stimulate such involvement in a way that the usual posters and community meetings have not succeeded in doing.  Maybe it’s the immediacy, maybe it’s the lack of effort required to get the information – no meetings, no phone calls. It’s all right there in front of you. And the cost, in time and money, of disseminating this information to a theoretically unlimited number of people, is virtually nil.

Of course, there are those who greet the push for crowdsourcing law enforcement with apprehensive skepticism (yes, this is a parody).  So far, however, the practical results have not proven sinister. And Lamberti is careful to point out that the police department takes care to follow procedure when making arrests and prosecuting cases, including obtaining valid evidence. In the end, due process shouldn’t be affected by this (and a police department inclined to play fast and loose with due process does so no matter how it obtains its leads), and the time and resources saved ensure a higher rate of crime prevention.