This article from the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center (NLECTC) discusses the use of social networking site as a way to improve community relations.
Law enforcement officials have discovered that social networking sites can be very useful tools for communicating with the public. This article from the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center (NLECTC) describes the advantages to police departments of using social networking sites. Sites such as Twitter and Nixle can be used to rapidly convey important information to citizens that might include crime alerts, suspect descriptions, road closings, and missing child alerts. Because people voluntarily post a lot of personal information on their Facebook and MySpace pages, these sites can be used by police to obtain information about suspects or gang activity. This article describes how three very different police departments, Baltimore, MD, Mt. Rainer, MD, and Modesto, CA, are using social networking site to their advantage.