The Role of Social Media in Public Safety

The Role of Social Media in Public Safety

Responses must be in APA format, 150+ words per response, no less than one legitimate, verifiable reference per discussion post Due by 8 pm May 5, 2019.

POST #1

Body cameras and in car videos have made an huge impact on how public safety professionals do their jobs. In late 2014 and early 2015 the body cameras were introduced to the world and they were given a slight test to see what they were capable of. This is an item that wasn’t always available to the police force and it is something that is making a huge impact on the world and community.

Police departments use body-worn cameras (body cams) and dashboard cameras (dash cams) to monitor the activity of police officers in the field. Video from these cameras informs review of police conduct in disputed circumstances, often with the goal of determining an officer’s intent ( Turner).

Over the years things have happened to where people have died in the arms of officers and nobody really knows what really happened. They are continuously going by what someone else said happened. So when an officer is on duty they are required wear the cameras so that they daily routine and every move is monitored by the cameras. Now if something big were to happen everything would be captured on the camera that is recording. So these cameras are very beneficial for a lot of different reasons. I think that they should have made these cameras a long time ago and some situations would’ve been solved quickly.

E. (2018, January 17). History of Body-Worn Camera Legislation. Retrieved April 29, 2019, from https://www.axon.com/company/news/history-of-bwc-legislation

Turner, B. L., Caruso, E. M., Dilich, M. A., & Roese, N. J. (2019, January 22). Body camera footage leads to lower judgments of intent than dash camera footage. Retrieved April 30, 2019, from https://www.pnas.org/content/116/4/1201

POST #2

Thermal Imaging Camera

Over the past 15 years the use of Thermal Imaging Cameras (TIC) in the fire service have become a stable in every fire department. Today they can be used in a wide array of fire department operations like firefighting and search and rescue operations. Thermal imagers were originally developed for use by the military. In 1947 was the first recording of a thermal imager being used, distribution of this tool was not wide spread since it was considered classified as a piece of secret technology so it could not be used in the construction of a heat seeking missile (Szajewska, 2017). The first generation thermal imagers took too long to decipher what the user was looking at taking around an hour to load a picture onto it screen. In the 1970’s the British Navy became the first organization to use a TIC to detect heat radiation on a ship fire (Szajewska, 2017). After that incident the idea of a TIC caught on in the American fire service, however due to the extremely high cost cameras where often giving to command staff to be kept in their car (Szajewska, 2017). Another downside to TIC’s was the weight and difficulty maneuvering them. In the 1970’s TIC’s weighed on average around ten pounds (Szajewska, 2017). As technology progressed in battery weight and screen resolution the cost of TIC’s reduced drastically.

Today’s firefighters benefit from advancements made over the past 20 years in TIC designed and application. Today’s TIC cameras weigh around 2 pounds and can be used with easily with bulky firefighting gloves on (Szajewska, 2017). Technology advancements in the bolometric detectors allow TIC users to identify individuals and the seed of the fire with greater ease (Szajewska, 2017). Another added benefit of a TIC was the ability for firefighters to see the amount of heat being generated by the fire. This is important since it alerts firefighters and incident commanders to possible flashover conditions. TIC’s also give incident commanders a better general characteristic of the buildings condition since it gives them an idea of where the fire location and size is. In the future the technology of a TIC can be developed to give live feedback to outside units as well as being mounted to the helmets of the firefighters (Szajewska, 2017). Firefighting will only be a dangerous occupation, but with the refinement of TIC it will become safer.

Szajewska, A. (2017). Development of the Thermal Imaging Camera (TIC) Technology. Procedia Engineering, 172, 1067-1072.

Post # 3

Social media has changed the way of life for all. Though it may seem as though social media has been around for quite some time it has recently been used to aid or deter public safety officials. Many of the social media networks are used now to aid and assist the local law enforcement. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter are providing state and local law enforcement with low cost ways of not only keeping the public informed, but educating them as well. Social media tools can help communicate with the public in emergencies, build situational awareness, and spur recovery. This facilitates trust between police and the citizens they are sworn to protect. There’s no doubt a tremendous amount of information can be found on the Internet as well as social networking sites. Police departments are now taking advantage of such tools to help solve crimes. Law enforcement are also using other forms of communication besides Facebook and twitter. The Baltimore Police have been employing Google Video Chat and Skype to communicate directly with members of the public and news media. Crime alerts are broadcast in real time on the department’s Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook pages. Videos on police and community happenings are posted weekly on YouTube, and residents can subscribe to free text-message alerts about crime in their neighborhood through Nixle. The merging of social media and the public dates back as far as the early 2000’s with hurricane Katrina. During which people from the community posted pictures on social media to show just how devastating the storm was at the time. Because of the posted information messages were relied back to the white house and from there assistance was sent. Overall, social media has been a major help to the public especially during disasters.

References

The Role of Social Media in Public Safety. (2010, November). Retrieved from http://www.hendonpub.com/resources/article_archive/results/details?id=1536

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