Policing, Disruption and Mobilisation Through Twitter. an Analysis of UK Law Enforcement Tweeting Practices During the Covid‑19 Pandemic Manja Nikolovska* , Shane D
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Nikolovska et al. Crime Sci (2020) 9:20 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40163-020-00129-2 Crime Science RESEARCH Open Access “Show this thread”: policing, disruption and mobilisation through Twitter. An analysis of UK law enforcement tweeting practices during the Covid-19 pandemic Manja Nikolovska* , Shane D. Johnson and Paul Ekblom Abstract Crisis and disruption are often unpredictable and can create opportunities for crime. During such times, policing may also need to meet additional challenges to handle the disruption. The use of social media by ofcials can be essential for crisis mitigation and crime reduction. In this paper, we study the use of Twitter for crime mitigation and reduction by UK police (and associated) agencies in the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic. Our fndings suggest that whilst most of the tweets from our sample concerned issues that were not specifcally about crime, especially during the frst stages of the pandemic, there was a signifcant increase in tweets about fraud, cybercrime and domestic abuse. There was also an increase in retweeting activity as opposed to the creation of original messages. Moreover, in terms of the impact of tweets, as measured by the rate at which they are retweeted, followers were more likely to ‘spread the word’ when the tweet was content-rich (discussed a crime specifc matter and contained media), and account holders were themselves more active on Twitter. Considering the changing world we live in, criminal opportunity is likely to evolve. To help mitigate this, policy makers and researchers should consider more systematic approaches to develop- ing social media communication strategies for the purpose of crime mitigation and reduction during disruption and change more generally. We suggest a framework for so doing. Keywords: Crime reduction, Crime prevention, Police, Twitter, Covid-19, Disruption, Crisis communication, Evidence- based policing, Social media policy Introduction (e.g. Halford et al. 2020). Studies concerned with domes- Te Covid-19 pandemic has had a profound efect on tic abuse (Usher et al. 2020, Piquero et. al 2020; Camp- society worldwide, infuencing how we work, interact bell 2020; Chandanet et al. 2020; Boserup et al 2020, with others, and travel. Unsurprisingly, it has also had an Pftzner et al. 2020) have produced mixed results, with impact on crime, with studies suggesting that lockdown initial spikes being followed by reductions in calls for restrictions have been associated with reductions in police service. With such studies it is unclear whether the crimes reported to the police for ofences including bur- reductions observed represent reductions in ofending glary (e.g. Ashby 2020; Halford et al. 2020; Felson et al. or the rate at which ofences are reported to the police. 2020), shoplifting (e.g. Halford et al. 2020), and assault Regardless, the patterns observed suggest an impact of the lockdown on these types of crime. While increases in crime have also been reported for cybercrime (Buil- *Correspondence: [email protected] Gil 2020; Hakak et al. 2020), including online fraud Dawes Centre for Future Crime at UCL, University College London, (e.g. Naidoo 2020; Cimpanu 2020), malware (Brumfeld London, UK 2020), hacking and phishing (Muncaster 2020; Kumaran © The Author(s) 2020. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creat iveco mmons .org/licen ses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creat iveco mmons .org/publi cdoma in/ zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. Nikolovska et al. Crime Sci (2020) 9:20 Page 2 of 16 and Lugani 2020), Hawdon, Parti and Dearden (2020) in mitigating both the pandemic and its knock-on efects report that cybercrime remained unchanged despite the on other aspects of life, such as crime and security. Char- swift change in routine activities. However, data on such acterising that web and how it works is vital to target- crimes is more elusive and analyses—at least in the aca- ing, assessing and improving the infuence process. In demic and open source literature—less complete than for the UK, ‘communication policing’, or open source police more traditional crimes such as those discussed above. communications that use the internet and social media, Interestingly, previous research on the impact on crime has been characterised as a new form of community of previous epidemics/pandemics is limited. Research policing by the. Open Source Communications Analytics (Fong and Chang 2011) conducted during the 2003 SARS Research [OSCAR] Development Centre.2 Teir research epidemic examined community collective efcacy in Tai- on the use of open source communications by police sug- wan in communities that experienced SARS and those gests that social media communications should be rou- that did not. However, the authors did not directly exam- tinely incorporated into police investigations, intelligence ine the efect of SARS on crime. For this and other rea- gathering and community engagement. In the present sons, understanding the extent to which Covid-19 has study, we focus on how UK law enforcement institutions impacted crime is important and will doubtless feature have sought to communicate with and infuence others to strongly in academic research in future.1 undertake, or desist from, a range of actions as required. To provide a complete picture of what has and will hap- In setting up the paper, we frst discuss existing crime sci- pen, will require access to police recorded crime data, but ence approaches for describing and assessing how ‘pro- also that reported to, or collected by other organisations. fessional security infuence’ is spread. Tere will be many Tis is because not all crimes (e.g. domestic abuse) are useful parallels in other policy areas, such as medicine reported to the police and because patterns of report- (e.g. see Michie et al. 2011) and generic infuence pro- ing may have changed during the lockdown. Additional cesses such as the ‘nudge’ approach (Halpern 2015), but insight may also be gained about patterns of ofending, our focus here is more limited. and concerns about this, from analysis of data posted In studying the dissemination of infuences on people’s to social media platforms, such as Twitter. In this paper, behaviour, and that of organisations, it is helpful to think we analyse data from UK government and law enforce- about roles to be played, and associated with these, the ment Twitter accounts with a view to understanding how accompanying responsibilities. Opportunity theories of law enforcement used this platform to inform the pub- crime (e.g. Cohen and Felson 1979) note that crime can lic about crime risk and what to do about it during the only occur when a likely ofender and victim converge early stages of the pandemic. While our focus here is on at a particular place (on or ofine) and time, absent a the Covid-19 pandemic, we consider this to be just one capable guardian. However, these are clearly not the only example of disruptions to society with the potential to actors involved. Te likelihood that such convergences impact on crime opportunity and motivation, and secu- will occur, and whether they are conducive to crime, is rity. As such, we view the research that follows as having further infuenced by the actions of place managers, and implications for other future large-scale disruptions, and ‘handlers’. Handlers are those who have an emotional national and global emergencies, and how society pre- attachment to a particular ofender (e.g. parents, friends) pares for them, including anticipating their consequences and can exert some control over them (e.g. discouraging for crime and security. them from ofending). Place managers on the other hand are directly responsible for specifc locations (e.g. shops, The web of Police infuence bars, hospitals), and can (for example) ensure the envi- Te use of social media to communicate in times of cri- ronment is designed to make crime more difcult (e.g. sis or disaster has become essential for the mitigation, by placing expensive items behind a counter in shops), coordination and recovery of societies hit by disruptions by training their staf to act in particular ways, or by (Houston et al. 2015). For example, to deal with security employing specifc tactics that deter crime or de-escalate and public safety during the pandemic, law enforcement situations as they arise. Extending the conceptual frame- and government agencies cannot act alone. A web of work further, Sampson et al. (2010) note that the actions infuence has to spread out from these (and other) stake- of guardians, place managers and handlers are infuenced holders to (for example) other agencies, private busi- by ‘supercontrollers’, who can include formal organisa- nesses and householders to enable them to play their part tions (e.g. regulators, government departments, police forces), difuse collectives (e.g. the media), as well as 1 See: https ://www.ucl.ac.uk/jill-dando -insti tute/resea rch/covid -19-speci al- paper s; https ://covid 19-crime .com/; https ://covid 19.counc ilonc j.org/.