The new Neighbourhood Watch: How the NSW Police Force uses Facebook for community engagement

Transcription

1 The new Neighbourhood Watch: How the NSW Police Force uses Facebook for community engagement A paper submitted for publication in the proceedings of the Australian and New Zealand Communication Association Annual Conference, Swinburne University, Victoria 9-11 July, Andrew Kelly and Dr Amalie Finlayson Charles Sturt University 1

2 Abstract The NSW Police Force has turned to Facebook to renew its community-policing efforts with the public. In 2011, the organisation launched Project Eyewatch, a community-policing program designed around the dialogic capability of social media. Project Eyewatch is a modern version of Neighbourhood Watch; only police engage the public online instead of at school halls. The NSW Police Force now has more than 110 Facebook sites operating under the banner of Project Eyewatch, each independently administered by police officers working at commands in local communities and in specialist sections of the organisation. Police organisations have been slow to embrace social networking but most have come to recognise the importance of being a part of online social media networks. However, studies have shown that many police organisations are using new technology to communicate in old ways, using Twitter and Facebook to transmit crime and policing information with little regard for customer feedback and the dialogic potential of online communication. This paper examines the efficacy of Project Eyewatch communication and, in particular, the program s influence on public confidence and trust in police. It considers the issues, risks and organisational constraints of using Facebook, and examines whether the strategy is meeting one of its primary objectives: to facilitate dialogic engagement with the public. The paper is based on a recent study that evaluated the efficacy of Project Eyewatch as a strategy for engaging the public in community policing (Kelly, 2013). Keywords: Organisational communication, new media, policing, Project Eyewatch 2

3 The new Neighbourhood Watch: How the NSW Police Force uses Facebook for community engagement Andrew Kelly and Dr Amalie Finlayson Introduction The constantly evolving World Wide Web is progressively changing the way police engage with the public, although policing organisations both globally and locally in Australia are yet to capitalise on the dialogic potential of social media. Research has shown that most police organisations are using the web to perform old tasks in new ways, to push out information to the public while largely ignoring the need to engage the public and use feedback to improve policing services and outcomes (Welch and Fulla, 2005, Brainard and McNutt, 2010, Rosenbaum et al., 2011). Police managers are concerned that information posted by the public on police websites could potentially harm their organisation s reputation and lead to litigation if it is offensive or unlawful (Cohen, 2010, Stevens, 2010, Vrielink, 2011). Many police organisations are also constrained by a lack of resources to mitigate these risks, to maintain a full-time web presence and to realise the full dialogic potential of social media. In recent years, governments in Australia and the United Kingdom have sought to improve customer service in all areas of government, including their police departments (Burn, 2010). Police in the United Kingdom and Australia have recognised that social media, including platforms such as Twitter, YouTube and Flickr, has the potential to improve the way police engage with the public (Burn, 2010). Internationally, police organisations have commenced trials of social media that aim to do more than support the traditional police public relations practice of pushing out information. This paper considers one such organisation, the New South Wales (NSW) Police Force, which in 2011 launched Project Eyewatch, a community-policing strategy that uses Facebook to engage with the public. The organisation established its first Facebook site in 2008 and now has more than 110 sites under the banner of Project Eyewatch, a modern version of the Neighbourhood Watch program. This paper is based on a recent study that evaluated the efficacy of Project Eyewatch as a community-policing strategy and, in particular, its impact on public confidence and trust 3

4 (Kelly, 2013). Public confidence and trust, along with legitimacy, are pervasive measures of modern policing that are closely associated with and influenced by people s perceptions of police communication, contact and interactivity (Skogan, 2006, Bradford et al., 2009, Quinton, 2011). This paper provides an overview of Project Eyewatch and its objectives, discusses how police are using Facebook to communicate with the public, considers the issues, risks and constraints of organisational use of social media, highlights the link between contemporary scholarship and the program s objectives, and finally evaluates whether police are meeting these objectives. An overview of Project Eyewatch and its objectives Project Eyewatch is described by the NSW Police Force as an online version of the seminal community-policing strategy Neighbourhood Watch (NSW Police Force, 2013). Support for Neighbourhood Watch waned during the 1990s but in recent years there has been a renewed focus by police on customer service and community engagement, leading to a revival of community-policing strategies (Fleming, 2005). The main difference between the old and new programs is Project Eyewatch s use of Facebook to engage with citizens online rather than face to face in school halls and people s lounge rooms. As of January 2014, the NSW Police Force had more than 110 Facebook sites, some linked to specialist sections of the organisation, such as recruitment, and others linked to police commands responsible for providing policing services to local communities (NSW Police Force, 2012). Project Eyewatch sites vary in the size of their public membership, with some sites such as Flemington in Sydney s inner attracting only a few hundred likes from the public and others such as Newcastle in regional NSW attracting more than 17,000 likes. In 2008, the NSW Police Force established a corporate Facebook site, which has generated more than 200,000 likes. The first Project Eyewatch site was established in While the corporate Facebook site is centrally administered by the NSW Police Media Unit, individual Project Eyewatch sites are administered by police in the specialist and local area commands they service (NSW Police Force, 2013). Project Eyewatch aims to give the public the opportunity to participate in active crime prevention activities online and in their own homes 24 hours a day, seven days a week (2013). Two types of communication were proposed by the architects of Project Eyewatch. 4

5 The first involved a daily dialogue between police and citizens on the Facebook forum, where pictures, videos and dialogue were posted by police with a view to generating comments and feedback from the public. The second type of communication involved regular online forums between police and members of the local community to discuss local policing and crime issues (2013). Project Eyewatch aimed to: 1. Give the community greater access to police; 2. Facilitate real-time engagement between police and citizens; 3. Seek public consensus on solutions to crime and policing problems; 4. Provide accurate up to date information to the public; 5. Facilitate forums to find solutions to crime and policing problems; 6. Provide a forum so citizens can provide feedback to police; and 7. Develop a high value community network (2013). What is effective communication? Campbell (1977) said that finding an all-encompassing definition of organisational effectiveness has long been regarded as unnecessary and unachievable; that organisations are unique and complex, capable of being simultaneously effective and ineffective across the various facets of their operation. The effectiveness of an organisation s communication with its customers is equally difficult to define, particularly for one as large as the NSW Police Force, which has more than 17,000 employees, operates across a geographical area of 800,000 square kilometres and serves a population of more than seven million (2012). To avoid having to evaluate the effectiveness of every conceivable example of communication occurring between the organisation and its customers, the study that this paper is based upon focused on a case study sample of 10 Project Eyewatch Facebook sites, conducting a content analysis of the dialogue to determine if certain communication behaviours were occurring in the interaction between police and the public. These behaviours are known to influence public perceptions of confidence and trust and, in particular, perceptions of police fairness, engagement and effectiveness (Hohl et al., 2010). Various studies have explored the characteristics of effective communication. For example: Scholars generally agree that contact between the police and the public can enhance the legitimacy of policing as an institution and organisation (Skogan, 5

6 2006, Tyler and Fagan, 2006, Jackson and Sunshine, 2007, Bradford et al., 2009, Rix et al., 2009); A one-on-one conversation with a member of the police has the effect of making a member of the public feel worthy of attention and respect (Bradford et al., 2009); Trust extends beyond perceptions that police perform their duties effectively and efficiently to include a sense that the police understand the needs of the community, they treat people fairly and with dignity, they give information and allow the public a voice to highlight local problems (Jackson and Bradford, 2010); and Providing citizens with crime and policing information can improve perceptions of their neighbourhood and of the local police (Bradford et al., 2009, 2010, Quinton, 2011). Social media and the changing priorities of policing Facebook is an online social media platform that allows users to create profiles, share personal information and interests, post videos and photographs and interact online with other members (Henson et al., 2011). With more than 10.9 million users in Australia, almost half the population, and 900 million users worldwide, Facebook gives police access to a very large section of society (2012). Aside from its potential to enhance engagement with the public, social media offers a source of intelligence for police and real-time information about policing issues, such as road accidents or emergencies (Crump, 2011). There are considerable advantages to using social media for community engagement purposes, as these services are easily accessible to both the police and the public and many people are already engaged in similar online networks (Crump, 2011). The connectivity of social networking services alleviates the physical difficulties and time pressures of travel, crowds and fixed hours for participation in traditional public meetings, while also facilitating lateral communication between members of the forum (Perlman, 2012). Castells plots the evolution of civil society, describing it as the organised expression of the views of the public sphere, where people come together as citizens and articulate their autonomous views to influence the political institutions of society (2008: 78). When 6

7 communicating with the public, government organisations such as the police should aim not to convince but to communicate, not to declare but to listen (Castells, 2008: 91). Governments are increasingly adhering to this ideal by emphasising the need for public bodies to be more accountable and responsive, and encourage citizen participation in priority setting and running local services (Brainard and McNutt, 2010, Jackson and Bradford, 2010). The establishment of the NSW Police Force customer service program in 2009 reflected these new priorities, with Project Eyewatch an extension of this organisational reform (Burn, 2010). The use of the web and social networking services by police has not yet brought about the transformational change to policing culture and practice that was expected by some (Crump, 2011). Historically, police organisations have tended to restrict and control the release of information to the public and while many have become efficient at transmitting information to the public, few solicit feedback or factor feedback into their decision making (Motschall and Cao, 2002, Crump, 2011, Egan, 2011, Perlman 2012). There is, however, a growing consensus among police managers that the web has the potential to enhance police legitimacy and further community policing objectives (Rosenbaum et al., 2011, Crump, 2011). Addressing the organisational risks of social networking There are three forms of control that can help to reduce the risks of engaging in social networking: legislative, technological and human. Legislative control is complicated by jurisdictional issues and the pervasive idea that cyberspace is free and distinguishable from the real world (Williams, 2007). Technology is a more effective way to regulate cyberspace because it can disrupt human action, impose constraints on how content is accessed and distributed, be instituted pervasively and with immediacy, be adaptive to changes in law, societal norms, market influences or cyber threats, be less contentious than regulation and be preventative rather than punitive (Lessig, 1999, Williams, 2007). Moderator engagement with the site s membership can address issues as they arise and help ensure important corporate messages are not ignored or missed (Regester and Larkin, 2008). It has also been shown that online forums are generally comprised of a homogenous membership of active and passive supporters who will do what they can to maintain the norms of the group, 7

8 reducing the need for moderator vigilance (Dahlberg, 2001, Boyd and Heer, 2006, Bruggeman, 2008, Farsangi, 2010). A key objective of community policing is to inform the public about local crime and policing issues, but public discussions about court matters can pose a risk to the judicial process and place the police in contempt of court (Kingshott, 2011). The NSW Police Force media policy warns of the need for police to balance the public s right for information against the integrity of the investigative and judicial processes (NSW Police Force, 2012). The organisation prohibits the public from posting discriminatory, unlawful, defamatory, private, copyright or intellectually protected comments on its Facebook sites. The rules are part of a risk mitigation strategy, which also relies on filtering technology and 24-hour monitoring by the NSW Police Force Media Unit to protect against objectionable or potentially unlawful public discourse. Methodology This study continues a longstanding reliance among police researchers on objectivist epistemology and the use of positivist or scientific methodology (Vickers, 2000, Thatcher, 2008). The limitations of this approach are acknowledged; in particular, the criticism that police researchers too readily apply quantitative measurements to assumptions about public perceptions (Shilston, 2008). The study did not seek to find a new definition of effective communication or to apply a new definition to the analysis of the data; instead it relied on established principles of effective police engagement and communication. For example, scholars have shown that public confidence can be enhanced simply by the police engaging as an active, visible and accessible part of community life (Skogan, 2006, Tyler and Fagan, 2006, Jackson and Sunshine, 2007, Bradford et al., 2009, Rix et al., 2009). Using deductive logic, it follows that if police are active, visible and accessible through their engagement with the public on Facebook then public confidence and trust is enhanced by such behaviour. The study evaluated the extent to which the police are meeting the objectives of Project Eyewatch by carrying out a content analysis of dialogue on 10 Project Eyewatch Facebook sites over a period of three days (see Table 1, below, for a breakdown of site membership over a three-month period and some geographic details for each site). The Project Eyewatch 8

9 sites with the largest memberships were selected for analysis on the basis that they were closest to operating at their full potential and engaging a broad and representative section of the community. The sampled Project Eyewatch sites were the five regional sites of Newcastle, Brisbane Waters, Wagga Wagga, Port Stephens and Blue Mountains, and five metropolitan sites of Hawkesbury, Sutherland, Campbelltown, Penrith and Mount Druitt. Location Membership 3-month growth Metropolitan or September 2013 regional command (June 2013 figure) Newcastle City 14,758 (13,758) 1000 (7.3%) Regional Blue Mountains 13,013 (11,660) 1353 (11.6%) Regional Brisbane Waters 14,138 (11,527) 2611 (22.7%) Regional Penrith 12,564 (11,150) 1414 (12.7%) Metropolitan Wagga Wagga 8,699 (7,893) 806 (10.2%) Regional Hawkesbury 9,300 (7,794) 1506 (19.3%) Metropolitan Port Stephens 7,780 (6,957) 823 (11.8%) Regional Campbelltown 7,843 (6,729) 1114 (16.6%) Metropolitan Mount Druitt 7,453 (6,371) 1082 (17%) Metropolitan Sutherland 7,518 (6,089) 1429 (23.5%) Metropolitan Table 1: Sampled NSW Police Force Project Eyewatch sites All entries made on the above sample sites by the police and the public between 16 and 18 September 2013 were collected as data. In total, there were 72 posts by police and nine by the public, generating a total of 528 entries from both police and the public. The collection of this data was designed in order to allow examination of whether public confidence and trust in police were increased by their engagement with the public on Facebook. In order to investigate this in more detail, the three distinct components of public confidence and trust, as identified by Jackson and Bradford, were considered: Trust in effectiveness of police dealing with crime; Trust in fairness or integrity of police when dealing with the public; and Trust in engagement the extent to which the police engage with the local community (Jackson and Bradford, 2010: 245). 9

10 Hohl, Bradford and Stanko (2010) elaborated on these components in their study on the influence of police leaflet drops on public perceptions of policing in London, asking participants to respond to a number of survey questions relating to police communication behaviours. The Project Eyewatch study used the same survey questions to identify communication behaviours that were likely to affect public perceptions of effectiveness, engagement and fairness, codifying these behaviours and applying them to the data obtained from the sampled Facebook sites. For example, one of the questions in the London study relating to police engagement asked participants to nominate the extent to which police listen to the public. The Project Eyewatch study used this question as one of 17 lines of inquiry (or codes), seeking and then quantifying examples of where police had or had not responded (listened) to the public. Research findings The study involved two levels of analysis: the first to evaluate how closely the objectives of Project Eyewatch are associated with the theoretical understanding of the kind of communication that would be likely to enhance public confidence and trust in the police; and the second to evaluate if the program s objectives are being realised in practice and to what extent this is occurring. The public are not well defined in the study, with only broad information available from Facebook Insights to categorise the age, gender and geography of people accessing Project Eyewatch sites. The absence of qualitative data means that it was not possible to get first-hand information from the public about how using Facebook has affected their views of police. Instead, the study relied on highlighting the parallels between the objectives of Project Eyewatch and several key studies linking certain communication behaviours with enhanced public confidence and trust. By searching for evidence of these communication behaviours on Project Eyewatch, the study was able to make assumptions about the influence of police public engagement and interactivity on Facebook. The study found that the objectives of Project Eyewatch are consistent with contemporary priorities in policing, encourage effective communication and would in a perfect-world reality be likely to enhance public confidence and trust in the police. Of course, such a perfect world does not exist and it was apparent from the study that in the normative reality, 10

11 where police practitioners operate, the objectives of Project Eyewatch and the theoretical principles of effective communication were not being met to any great extent. The study found that the way police administering these sites communicated with the public varied vastly between Project Eyewatch sites. Some sites relied solely on republishing corporate news releases, others responded occasionally to public questions, while there were just a few examples in the data of police engaging in a limited conversation with members of the public on a topic by making two or more comments in the same thread of conversation. The Blue Mountains site was one such example where the police engaged in an ongoing conversation on the topic of a semitrailer crash, although the provision of information about this incident and the comments by police on Project Eyewatch came several hours after the first public comments; possibly because the incident occurred late at night. Evaluating the data against the objectives of Project Eyewatch In relation to the first objective of giving the community greater access to police, the study found that Project Eyewatch was achieving this in a limited way. People can access Project Eyewatch sites on internet-enabled devices at any time and location, which in effect is providing the community with greater access to police than they would have if Project Eyewatch did not exist. However, the data suggests that relatively few people are accessing Project Eyewatch on Facebook or using it to engage in a manner that reflects the program s aspiration for dialogic communication. The data related to the second objective showed only minimal real-time engagement between police and citizens. Across the 10 sites, police posted 72 items in three days, comprising mostly media releases about missing persons, policing operations, arrests and some crime information. The postings generated 439 comments from the public and just 17 comments from police. Of the 37 issues, questions and requests raised by the public across all 10 sites, police acknowledged just 12 by way of a response. Of the 72 initial police postings, 25 were on the Brisbane Waters site. Its administrators were the most engaged of all the sites, responding to six of eight public issues, questions and requests. The relative willingness of Brisbane Waters police to engage with the public on Facebook appears to have been a factor in attracting the largest number of public comments during the sample period (184), as well as 30 comments from people expressing confidence in the local police compared to 13 such comments on the other nine sites combined. It is clear from the data 11

12 that police are using Project Eyewatch to transmit information, just as they would if they were issuing a media release, and in doing so using new technology to communicate in old ways. There is no evidence that Project Eyewatch is being used by police to realise the third objective of seeking public consensus on solutions to crime and policing problems. Many of the media releases posted on Project Eyewatch contained a request for information or assistance and while it is possible that this generated calls to CrimeStoppers or other feedback, there was no feedback from police on any of the sites to show that information from the public had been received or used to solve a crime or policing problem. The fourth Project Eyewatch objective of providing up to date and accurate information to the public is being met to a limited extent. Much of the information posted by police related to missing persons, significant arrests and organisational campaigns to raise public awareness on issues such as end of school year celebrations. While this information is likely to have been of interest to local communities, there were only a few instances of police providing follow-up information or responding to public requests, questions and issues generated by a media release. Brisbane Waters was the only site to post a daily summary of crime information, something that studies has shown can improve public perceptions of confidence and trust in police (Hohl et al., 2010). Often, the limited feedback provided by police was delayed. For example, the Blue Mountains site received several requests from the public for information about a late-night truck crash and rescue operation involving helicopters and the closure of a main road. Police responded by issuing an organisation-wide media release the following morning, which was linked to the Blue Mountains Facebook site. While it was clear that the broad information provided in the release was linked to the previous night s events, police did not directly respond to any individual user who posted a question or issue on the local police Facebook site. People wanting accurate and up to date information about road closures and the circumstances that led to the truck crash had no choice but to seek this information from the media and other internet sites because of the absence of information on Project Eyewatch. The NSW Police Force proposed two kinds of community engagement on Project Eyewatch: general dialogue and facilitated forums to meet the fifth objective of finding solutions to crime and policing problems (NSW Police Force, 2012). The forums were designed to have an agenda and to give people a set time to respond to agenda items. Police 12

13 were expected to follow up on the issues raised and report back to the forum. There is no evidence on any of the sites that these forums are occurring. Project Eyewatch meets the sixth objective of providing a forum for citizens to provide feedback to police, but there were only a few examples where public feedback appeared to influence police activity. The data shows police from Brisbane Waters and Hawkesbury, to a lesser extent, were the most interactive and responsive of all the sites. For example, Hawkesbury police engaged a member of the public who raised the issue of a stolen laptop, encouraging them to report the crime. The final objective of Project Eyewatch is to develop a high value community network. Many of the assumptions made in this study about the influence of police engagement on public perceptions of confidence and trust rely on the presence of a large and representative audience for police to engage with, something that Project Eyewatch is not currently providing. Many sites have only a few hundred subscribers and even the most popular sites have a membership of fewer than 10 per cent of the local community. The 10 sampled sites grew between 7 and 23 per cent in the three months from June to September 2013, suggesting that Project Eyewatch is growing and has not reached its full potential (see Table 1, above). Discussion Very few of the Project Eyewatch objectives are being met at present and while this might be able to be attributed in part to the program s relative infancy there are a number of issues with the way police are communicating with the public that need addressing. The issues stem from an absence of police involvement, engagement and interactivity on their own Project Eyewatch sites. There is considerable inconsistency in the administration of Project Eyewatch across the organisation, with some sites, such as Brisbane Waters, making significant effort to engage the public and others such as Penrith and Port Stephens showing almost no evidence of engagement. Police appear to be using Facebook to share crime and policing information with the public but there is little evidence of interactivity and two-way communication occurring. In almost all police postings, police did not follow up with a response to comments made by the 13

14 public. There were 37 specific issues, questions and requests raised by the public, only 12 of which were responded to by police. Although police initiated 72 of the 81 threads of dialogue through the posting of a media release, the public contributed more than 95 per cent of comments that followed. The data suggests that police are using Project Eyewatch to transmit information with little regard for engaging dialogically with the public. There is evidence from the data that police involvement on Facebook encourages public participation. The most active of the sampled sites, Brisbane Waters, grew 22.7 per cent (2611 new subscribers) in the three months from June to September The next highest growth was at Hawkesbury with 1506 new subscribers. The data shows police from Brisbane Waters and Hawkesbury, to a lesser extent, were the most interactive and responsive of all the sites. Public attention was also drawn to Project Eyewatch when a major incident occurred. For example, a truck crash in the Blue Mountains generated more than 60 comments on the local Project Eyewatch site. Facebook communication is asynchronous, meaning people post a comment and await a response. To facilitate real-time engagement between police and citizens it would be necessary for an officer at each local area command to continuously monitor the Project Eyewatch site. It is apparent from the Blue Mountains truck crash example, where police took several hours to respond to public inquiries, that police are not continually monitoring their Facebook sites. Providing human resources to adequately monitor and engage on social media is a significant challenge for policing jurisdictions (Stevens, 2010). A recent survey of NSW Police Force Facebook subscribers identified a need for police to loosen up the tone of conversation and be more human, share more content to maximise awareness of local Facebook pages, close the loop on missing persons and re-share old appeals, publish more proactive crime prevention tips and themed advice such as cyber security, and host live chats (Au, 2013). The publishing of these survey findings on Facebook by the NSW Police Force suggests that the organisation is both willing to improve Project Eyewatch and aware of its current limitations, as outlined in this study. Conclusion While web technology is becoming a pervasive part of the NSW Police Force s modern policing approach, the way it communicates with the public is consistent with old practices of being a net transmitter of information and a reluctant accepter of feedback. The public 14

15 provides information to police through Project Eyewatch but there is no evidence that this information is being used to improve or shape policing policy and operations. While the objectives of Project Eyewatch are consistent with contemporary understanding of what is the best way for police to engage with the public to enhance confidence and trust, the reality is that these objectives are not yet being met. The strategy s relative infancy is a significant cause of its current limitations but as public awareness of Project Eyewatch grows and the Facebook sites become more representative of local communities it will be incumbent on police administrators to engage them in a way that meets the program s objectives. This study analysed the effect of police engagement on public confidence and trust, relying on a content analysis of Facebook dialogue to identify patterns in the communication between police and the public so assumptions could then be made by comparing the results with findings from eminent theoretical studies on the topic. The lack of direct data from the public was both a limitation of the study and a potential avenue for future research on the topic. Such research might rely on an intervention or similar research strategy to directly measure the impact of various police approaches to social media on public perceptions of confidence and trust. It would also be worthwhile focusing on the successful Project Eyewatch sites, such as Brisbane Waters, to evaluate in more depth why the site is more successful. Such research might include interviews with the police involved in the administration of the site. 15

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