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ConnectedCOPS Awards 2012: Finalists Announced for Top Cop Award

The ConnectedCOPS Top Cop finalists have been determined. A dozen of the planet’s top police executives in five countries were nominated for this award. The finalists in this category have demonstrated exemplary leadership and have mentored their peers.

Joe Porcelli is Director of Engagement Services for GovDelivery and GovLoop and was one of seven judges in this category. “Judging this award has been an inspiring experience,” he said, and added “I strongly encourage everyone to appreciate the drive, innovation and persistence they each have demonstrated in service to their fellow citizens.”

ConnectedCOPS Top Cop

This award is given to the sworn law enforcement executive of the rank of LT (or its international equivalent) and up, at any worldwide law enforcement agency who has demonstrated significant and sustained executive leadership to further the use of social media and Internet technologies in law enforcement. This individual is a risk-taker and a pioneer in his or her promotion and use of social media in policing. The recipient of the Top Cop Award also gives his thought leadership and expertise freely to others.

We have four finalists and they are (in no order of significance):

Deputy Chief Peter Sloly, Toronto Police
Because he was so quick to see the benefits of implementing social media into police operations, Deputy Chief Sloly was among the earliest of adopters of open source technology into law enforcement. Some of the first professional police gatherings to address the topic had, and continue to have, Deputy Sloly as their main speaker. He continues to share this enthusiasm and leadership expertise widely to an international audience. He is said to “walk the talk” and has lead the Toronto Police Service to be considered among the best in the world with social media. He leads up and down to create an atmosphere of openness, and encourages all to participate in a Service of 8,000 members.

Deputy Chief Constable Gordon Scobbie, Tayside Police & ACPO
In addition to his duties as DCC in Tayside, Gordon Scobbie serves as the ACPO appointed Social Media Lead for Police for all of the United Kingdom. DCC Scobbie daily gives of his time and wisdom to help his colleagues learn to also lead with open source technologies and to embrace “what they don’t know” in order to better embrace input. Scobbie has traveled internationally to speak to his peers at several major law enforcement conferences and has successfully convinced many of his colleagues to take the risks necessary to gain the many benefits of social media. He is one of few voices to stress engagement over all else in order to also realize the full potential of social media in policing.

Chief Constable Stuart Hyde, Cumbria Police
CC Hyde has lead the Cumbria Constabulary’s social media program to be among the finest in the UK. Chief Hyde is the President of the Society for the Policing of Cyberspace, Vice-President of the High Tech Crime Consortium and was instrumental in the creation of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP). CC Hyde gives regularly of his time to support charities including the Blue Lamp Foundation, Marie Collins Foundation and regularly jumps into very cold water to support Comic Relief and Sport Relief.

Inspector Henk van der Linden, Rotterdam Police
Inspector van der Linden is a strong force in the strategic use of social media in policing in the Netherlands. As a project manager for the Rotterdam Police, he is an innovative and inspired leader and from that he was a leader in the adoption of social media by the Dutch Police. He is the co-founder of the “9 domains of social media”, a program being used as a guideline for the use of social media in law enforcement for the Dutch police and internationally. Because of his incredible work, the Dutch police are considered a European front runner in social media and policing.

Finalists in the other awards categories will be announced throughout this week on this blog. Check back to see the finalists for the Leadership Award tomorrow. Winners will be announced September 10th at The SMILE Conference™ in Richmond, Virginia.

Previous finalists were announced earlier this week:

The ConnectedCOPS Awards were created by LAwS Communications with the intent of recognizing the good work being done by individual officers and law enforcement agencies with social media. The international law enforcement community will be considered for these awards. Any officer or agency anywhere in the world is eligible.

Disclaimer: DCC Gordon Scobbie also served as a judge on these awards. He did not judge, nor did he have access to nominee information for, this category.

ConnectedCOPS Awards 2012: Finalists Announced for Excellence at a Small Agency

The ConnectedCOPS Excellence at a Small Agency Award finalists have been determined. This award generated 16 nominations for 9 agencies from three countries.

The finalists in this category have demonstrated innovation and variety of approaches to integrating social media. “Even though they have fewer people, they have shown great leadership in developing an online presence,” said Paul Lander, Senior Editor at Police Professional in the UK, and one of seven judges in this category. He added, “from prolific engagement, to re-engineering their delivery models and simply showing the human face of law enforcement through the use of humour, they’ve all found ways of engaging with their communities, providing information and receiving feedback, at least as proficiently as many of the larger organisations.”

ConnectedCOPS Excellence at a Small Agency

This award is given to a law enforcement agency of 150 sworn officers or fewer that has demonstrated overall excellence in the use of social media to enhance its services to the public. The agency exhibits leadership, creativity and innovation in its use of social media to engage, educate, recruit, and etc. The agency has a broad and deep understanding of social media use and applies sound governance and strategy in its social media operations. The agency also promotes the use of social networking in law enforcement through its outreach to colleagues and by mentoring others.

We have three finalists and they are (in no order of significance):

Redwood City Police, California
Redwood City Police began using social media early in 2011 and is considered a leader in the Bay Area with regard to implementation of social media into policing. Together with Fremont PD, Redwood City created the Bay Area Law Enforcement Social Media Group (BALESMG) to help other government groups create best practices. The group now has over 50 agency members from five counties that meet quarterly.

Billerica Police, Massachusetts
The Billerica Police Department has focused on increased community engagement with social media. Residents report being well-informed by the BPD and to feeling safer knowing “what and where things are happening”. BPD not only uses social media to keep residents informed of everything from road closures to criminal activity, but their program has also been integral during community emergencies such as winter storms.

Redlands Police, California
Redlands Police primarily uses, and was instrumental in developing, Copbook into its knowledge management program. Copbook is a secure, encrypted, law enforcement only application using architecture similar to that which is used by U.S. intelligence service analysts and allows department members to communicate within the agency and with other agencies. It is the backbone for RPD’s knowledge management program to Capture, Use, Share and Increase what its members know about local crime and disorder issues.

Finalists in the other awards categories will be announced throughout this week on this blog. Check back to see the finalists for the Top Cop Award tomorrow. Winners will be announced September 10th at The SMILE Conference™ in Richmond, Virginia.

Previous finalists were announced earlier this week:

The ConnectedCOPS Awards were created by LAwS Communications with the intent of recognizing the good work being done by individual officers and law enforcement agencies with social media. The international law enforcement community will be considered for these awards. Any officer or agency anywhere in the world is eligible.

Role of Social Media in Law Enforcement Significant and Growing

See full infographic below text.

WASHINGTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–LexisNexis® Risk Solutions today announced the results of a comprehensive survey focused on the impact of social media on law enforcement in criminal investigations. The survey revealed that currently four out of five respondents use various social media platforms to assist in investigations and found agencies serving smaller populations and with fewer sworn personnel (<50) use social media more, while state agencies tend to use it less (71%) than local (82%) and federal (81%) agencies.
“As officers start to secure more formal training and gain an increased comfort level in the power of social media, the value it provides will continue to rise.”

The research also found that identifying people and locations; discovering criminal activity and locations; and gathering evidence are the top activities, while Facebook and YouTube are the most widely used platforms.

  • 67% believe social media helps solve crimes more quickly
  • 87% of the time, search warrants utilizing social media to establish probable cause hold up in court when challenged, according to respondents
  • Close to 50% of respondents use social media at least weekly
  • Only 10% of respondents learned how to use social media for investigations through formal training given at the agency
  • Lack of access and familiarity are primary reasons for non-use – 70% are either unable to access social media during work hours or do not have enough background to use

The survey also generated anecdotal use cases. One law enforcement officer indicated that social media provided information on a: “terroristic threat involving students in a local high school. Further investigation (utilizing Facebook) revealed the threats were credible and we conducted follow-up investigations which revealed a student intent on harming others. The student was in the process of attempting to acquire weapons. It’s my belief we avoided a ‘Columbine’ type scenario.”

“As a former crime analyst for the San Diego Police Department and the FBI, I understand the value social media provides in terms of crime prevention and investigation,” said Samantha Gwinn, government solutions consultant, LexisNexis. “As officers start to secure more formal training and gain an increased comfort level in the power of social media, the value it provides will continue to rise.”

The research conducted in March 2012 assessed the law enforcement community’s understanding of, proclivity to use, and actual use of social media, and aimed to better understand acceptability thresholds of various types of investigative techniques and current resources and processes being used. According to the survey, 83% of current users anticipate using social media more, while 74% of those not currently using it indicated they intend to start using it.

Sponsored by LexisNexis, the nationwide survey was conducted online and solicited feedback from more than 1,200 participants at every level of law enforcement – from rural localities to major metropolitan cities to federal agencies – producing a comprehensive view of the social media landscape. Respondents are active law enforcement professionals ranging in age, experience, and job level.

For more information on the survey and its results, please visit www.lexisnexis.com/investigations.

About LexisNexis Risk Solutions

LexisNexis® Risk Solutions (www.lexisnexis.com/risk/) is a leader in providing essential information that helps customers across all industries and government predict, assess and manage risk. Combining cutting-edge technology, unique data and advanced scoring analytics, we provide products and services that address evolving client needs in the risk sector while upholding the highest standards of security and privacy. LexisNexis Risk Solutions is part of Reed Elsevier, a leading publisher and information provider that serves customers in more than 100 countries with more than 30,000 employees worldwide.

Our government solutions assist law enforcement and agencies with deriving insight from complex data sets, improving operational efficiencies, making timely and informed decisions to enhance investigations, increasing program integrity, and discovering and recovering revenue.

Contacts

LexisNexis Risk Solutions
Media Contact
ConnellyWorks, Inc.
A.J. Guenther
Phone: 571-323-2585, ext. 2130
aj@connellyworks.com

ConnectedCOPS Awards 2012: Finalists Announced for Excellence at a Large Agency

The ConnectedCOPS Excellence at a Large Agency Award finalists have been determined. This award generated more than a dozen nominations from five countries; three countries are represented in the finalists listing. The finalists in this category have demonstrated a proactive strategic approach to the implementation of open source technology into their communication plans.

Doug Wyllie, Senior Editor at Police One, was one of seven judges in this category. He said, “Because large agencies in particular have the manpower and resources to do some pretty incredible stuff with social media, that category was an especially hard one to rank. The nominations were oustanding.”

ConnectedCOPS Excellence at a Large Agency

This award is given to a law enforcement agency, anywhere in the world, of 151 sworn officers or more that has demonstrated overall excellence in the use of social media to enhance its services to the public. The agency exhibits leadership, creativity and innovation in its use of social media to engage, educate, recruit, and etc. The agency has a broad and deep understanding of social media use and applies sound governance and strategy in its social media operations. The agency also promotes the use of social networking in law enforcement through its outreach to colleagues and by mentoring others.

We have three finalists and they are (in no order of significance):

Reykjavik Police, Iceland
The Reykjavik Metropolitan Police (RMP) began using social media in late 2010. With 22,000 followers on Facebook in a country of 320,000, it’s one of the largest followings, per capital in the world. The social media implementation is a small step towards building digital policing in Iceland, the end product being a fully digital police station with additional presence in Twitter (the Chief is currently using Twitter) and YouTube. The RMP is finding that social media is both a cost-effective way of community policing but is also turning out to be one of the key points into building trust between the police and the public.

Toronto Police, Canada
The Toronto Police Service (TPS) put together a team of Service members at the end of 2010 to develop its social media communication strategy. They began implementing the strategy in January of 2011 and continue today. The TPS strategy includes the use of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google+ in an integrated approach across all Units, Community Consultative Groups and 17 Divisions of the Service. The TPS understands that the role of serving and protecting is all about relationships. They’re using social media for crowd control during protests and to collaborate to save lives. They also regularly debate issues like sexual assault, teen suicide prevention, and domestic violence. They are dedicated to implementing the vision of community collaboration for success and safety and using social media to engage and empower citizens.

New South Wales Police, Australia
The New South Wales Police (NSWP) began its Project Eyewatch in 2011 as its strategy to reinvigorate community engagement and openness in policing through the concept of Neighbourhood Watch in the 21st Century. NSWP’s Project Eyewatch uses Facebook to reduce crime through conscious security measure, visibility and community cohesion. Eyewatch is about empowering residents with the ability to participate in crime prevention activities online in their own homes 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and is based on 4 key strategies: 1) Focus on people who need our help; 2) empower accountability; 3) balance priorities and 4) develop community capacity and sustainability.

Finalists in the other awards categories will be announced throughout this week on this blog. Check back to see the finalists for Excellence at a Small Agency tomorrow. Winners will be announced September 10th at The SMILE Conference™ in Richmond, Virginia.

Previous finalists were announced earlier this week:

The ConnectedCOPS Awards were created by LAwS Communications with the intent of recognizing the good work being done by individual officers and law enforcement agencies with social media. The international law enforcement community will be considered for these awards. Any officer or agency anywhere in the world is eligible.

Disclaimer: LAwS Communications served as a consultant to the Toronto Police Service during the development of its social media strategy and is not a judge on this or any of the ConnectedCOPS Awards.

ConnectedCOPS Awards 2012: Finalists Announced for Social Media Incident Management

The Social Media Incident Management Award is sponsored by Nixle.

The ConnectedCOPS Social Media Incident Management Award is generously sponsored by Nixle. Travis Scott is Vice President of Agency relations at Nixle. He said, “Nixle is proud to be the sponsor of the Social Media Incident Management award because in a world where social media has drastically changed the way that people communicate, it is critical that our local law enforcement and public safety embrace the power of these platforms as well. We at Nixle believe that the winner of this award should be considered a model agency that all other agencies can based their social media strategy on.”

Nominations for this award came from several countries. The finalists in this category are doing extraordinary work managing emergency events. The judges were very impressed with the quality of nominations in this category.

ConnectedCOPS Social Media Incident Management

This award is given to the law enforcement officer or agency anywhere in the world who has used social media to manage and/or influence a public safety/emergency event, whether unforeseen or known. This officer/agency has strategically and successfully implemented social media engagement techniques to positively and effectively communicate public safety information in an urgent or emergency situation.

We have three finalists and they are (in no particular order):

Queensland Police, Australia

The QPS Social Media strategy began in mid-2010 to provide timely and accurate public safety information, and to support operational police in the course of their duties. Later that year, on Christmas Eve, Cyclone Tasha made landfall creating flooding across Queensland. The agency primarily used Facebook and Twitter to keep the people of Queensland up to date with updates averaging every ten minutes. Radio and television stations were directing their audiences to the QPS Facebook page as the official source of information. Social media allowed QPS to transcend traditional communication boundaries, providing a much faster and more efficient service to the media both nationally and internationally via the QPS YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter pages. The robustness of social media sites allowed QPS to distribute high volumes of vital information and to maintain access to that information while many government websites crashed under the sheer weight of user traffic.

New South Wales Police, Australia

In 2012, the state of New South Wales, Australia was subject to severe flooding across the North West and South West of the State over an area twice the size of Texas. The New South Wales Police, having developed Project Eyewatch, used the program to create a range of warning notices during the extreme flooding in the New South Wales area. Project Eyewatch is a platform for the delivery of information to the community of NSW utilising Facebook. The “eyewatch” concept is about penetrating into and engaging the community to identify problems and work on a whole of community solution. In policing terms, this enhances their ability to environmentally scan their communities with a target on 1. Crime Prevention 2. Crime Detection 3. Emergency Management 4. Crisis Management and 5 Counter Terrorism Management. In terms of major emergencies, the State of NSW, through Project Eyewatch and its strategic links to all government response and combat agencies is in a solid position to inform community about emergencies, strategies to combat those emergencies and general safety information, prior to, during and post emergency.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, California

During the 2011 Christmas/New Year’s holiday season, the Los Angeles County area experienced an alarming wake-up call when several fires broke out during a one week period. It was evident early on that the fires were at the hands of a serial arsonist intent on burning everything in his path. Because the incident locations took place in multiple agency jurisdictions, the investigation required investigators from agencies ranging from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles Fire Department, Los Angeles County Fire Department, and members of the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Assembling all of the agencies under one Joint Tasks Force was no small task but what was equally impressive was the Joint Information Center established to communicate one unified public message utilizing social media networks such as Twitter, Facebook, Nixle and agency websites. 

Finalists in the other awards categories will be announced throughout this week on this blog. The Social Media Investigator finalists were announced July 16th. Check back to see the finalists for Excellence in a Large Agency tomorrow. Winners will be announced September 10th at The SMILE Conference™ in Richmond, Virginia.

Previous finalists were announced earlier this week:

The ConnectedCOPS Awards were created by LAwS Communications with the intent of recognizing the good work being done by individual officers and law enforcement agencies with social media. The international law enforcement community will be considered for these awards. Any officer or agency anywhere in the world is eligible.

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