Policy Development: Regulating the Use of Social Media in Law Enforcement Organizations

Since its advent, social media sites have boosted connections, not just for people but businesses and organizations. These sites have emerged in the recent past as useful tools for information sharing and for friends, families and even coworkers to interact with one another more frequently regardless of their physical location. Presently, the main goal of these social media sites has evolved from a mere connection between family and friends to include instantaneous interactions among agencies and organization; therefore, a better and a quicker way of disseminating information. Just like in the current society, the use of social media in law enforcement is now common as it helps the agencies inform the public of useful information in a relatively convenient and inexpensive way. Similarly, the employees of these agencies often use similar sites for private information and entertainment. Despite its importance to both the law agencies and their employees, social media can result in liability problems; and therefore, these agencies must with caution, regulate their employees use of such sites irrespective of the legal difficulties that it comes with.

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Individual law enforcement agencies must observe and understand their employees' First Amendment rights when it comes to policies concerning their use of social media, however, due to the nature of the job description, these agencies need to regulate individual officer's social media use to prevent social media related risks. The bible says that because of the slow nature of the execution of evil deeds, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil; therefore, the law enforcement agencies can only be too careful with their employees' use of social media. According to research, many law enforcement agencies especially their employees are unfamiliar with potential legal risks that can occur as a result of social media use (Aula, 2010). For this reason, individual officers do not have a First Amendment Right that does not conform with their agencies' policies. For instance, law enforcement agencies should not allow their officers to post words or images that can be used by attorneys to discredit their testimonies as well as the agencies' credibility since those posts forever become part of the worldwide electronic domain (Elefant, 2011). Retired Chief of Police, Ronald Lowenberg believes that the integrity of an officer's actions is always in question and using social media would only serve to question the officer's motives or actions in a negative manner (R. Lowenberg, personal communication, September 12, 2018). This means that the rights of an officer may be infringed by individual beliefs that can cloud a decision, such as, a critical statement posted on, for example, Facebook. Comments or images may be an employee's opinion. However, if these conflict with a police department's policy or a city's political standing, this can cause the public to distrust its employees. In addition, social media sites are extremely viral and the fastest way of disseminating vital information to a large number of people, hence once an officer messes up, it is only a matter of time before the misstep becomes uncontrollable. Ultimately, posting of any sensitive or confidential information that can cause civil cases or embarrassment to the law enforcement agencies should be regulated and prohibited.

To effectively regulate their employees' use of social media, law enforcement agencies must be able to balance between First Amendment Right of their officers and ensuring their credibility. Everyone has a right to free speech as demonstrated on social medias by regular citizens and even the police officers; however, being a cop is not covered under the First Amendment Right, and that privilege can be taken away from a police officer if his or her actions reflect poorly on the agency (Ardito, 2013).). In 2013, The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that law enforcement agencies' social media policies tread heavily on individual officers' First Amendment Rights and because of this different police departments have revised their existing social media policies to differentiate between permitted and prohibited speech (Meijer & Thaens, 2013). For instance, according to the new policies, any comments on the internal operations of a law enforcement agency, or any conduct by a police officer that negatively impacts the public perception of the department is prohibited and is not protected under the free speech clause (Brunty & Helenek, 2014). However, the second provision of the new policies highlighted the officers' First Amendment Right on posting or commenting on issues that are considered to be of public concern. This does not include comments that may interfere with relationships among fellow police officers, disrupt the workforce or undermines the agency's image. As stated by Crump (2011), people may have the constitutional right to talk politics, but they have no constitutional right to be law enforcement officers.With the advice from legal experts, these agencies can put up well-defined regulations on the use of social media sites, monitor and enforce these policies. Despite the volatile nature of the social media risks, for law agencies to effectively regulate their employees' use of social media, they must educate their employees on the risk areas of social media laws which include but not limited to proper use of intellectual property on their social media sites (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Law officers need to understand the repercussions that come with using any information or content that is not generated by their agencies on their sites without obtaining the relevant approvals. According to Stojkovic et al. (2014), these permissions need to be officially written and appropriate credit given to the original owner of the content. Lowenberg highlights the importance of stressing integrity from the beginning of an officer's employment during his academy enrollment, his daily briefings, and his training throughout his years of service (R. Lowenberg, personal communication, September 12, 2018).

Again, law enforcement agencies need to establish comprehensive social media policies and must involve all the inputs from all the departments including human resource, IT and legal. These policies can be an effective way of managing officers' social media conduct by limiting their presence in social media at work and ensuring that they are familiar with the consequences of misusing these sites. In particular, due to the overlapping social media functions, these policies must clearly define what can be defamatory to the agency and specific repercussions of such actions. Furthermore, by establishing effective rules and policies across all departments, it becomes easier for agencies to ensure their social media policies conforms with both the social media laws and individual agencies' policies including employment policies, confidentiality policies and use of personal equipment policies.

Like the Bible states, God did not send his son into the world to condemn mankind but for the world to be saved through him, thereby, educating law officers on social media policies and applying them consistently is the best way to protect law enforcement organizations' reputation on social media.

However, law enforcement agencies and policy managers need to have a clear, efficient and well communicated social media policies to be able to deal effectively with internal affairs. Justice (2013) states that a comprehensive social media policy should be created with the inputs of different departmental heads and inputs from expert counsel to include various key elements.

First, the policy should indicate the chain of command and the authorization levels needed to use agency information on social media sites.

Secondly, the policy should indicate that the use of personal social media accounts must be consistent with the regulations and laws of the agency.

Thirdly, the policy must suggest if and when, especially in the working place, the use of these sites is allowed to prevent distractions and leaking of workplace information.

The policies should also articulate the need and the frequency of evaluating individual officers' social media accounts to determine the confidence levels. This will ensure that the employees use social media with caution fearing indictment.

With regards to employees' law enforcement responsibilities, the policy should define if and when to use personal gadgets for official law enforcement, and when off-duty.

Including the inputs of IT, personnel in the agency will help employees understand the documentation, retention and storage requirement for any content posted on personal accounts or obtained from social media resources.

Lastly, the policy must articulate the chain of commands, procedures and time for dissemination of investigative products to the general public if need be to avoid controversial and inaccurate statements.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the importance of social media to law enforcement agencies and their officers does not overweigh its liabilities, and therefore, these agencies, with proper policies, should regulate their employees' use of social media to avoid legal and image problems. As evidence suggests above, misuse of social media by law officers can lead to the discrediting of testimonies in the court of law and loss of the agency's credibility. Evidence also highlights the best ways to regulate the employees' use of social media accounts without interfering with their First Amendment Right and the best department policy to ensure success in this endeavor.

References

Ardito, A. (2013). Social Media, Administrative Agencies, and the First Amendment. Admin. L. Rev., 65, 301.

Aula, P. (2010). Social media, reputation risk, and ambient publicity management. Strategy & Leadership, 38(6), 43-49.

Brunty, J., & Helenek, K. (2014). Social media investigation for law enforcement. Routledge.

Crump, J. (2011). What are the police doing on Twitter? Social media, the police and the public. Policy & Internet, 3(4), 1-27.

Elefant, C. (2011). The power of social media: legal issues & best practices for utilities engaging social media. Energy LJ, 32, 1.

Justice, G. (2013). Use of Social Media. Retrieved from https://it.ojp.gov/documents/d/Developing%20a%20Policy%20on%20the%20Use%20of%20Social%20Media%20in%20Intelligence%20and%20Inves....pdf

Kaplan, A. M., & Haenlein, M. (2010). Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media. Business horizons, 53(1), 59-68.

Meijer, A., & Thaens, M. (2013). Social media strategies: Understanding the differences between North American police departments. Government Information Quarterly, 30(4), 343-350.

Mossberger, K., Wu, Y., & Crawford, J. (2013). Connecting citizens and local governments? Social media and interactivity in major US cities. Government Information Quarterly, 30(4), 351-358.

Stojkovic, S., Kalinich, D., & Klofas, J. (2014). Criminal justice organizations: Administration and management. Cengage Learning.