Wednesday, April 7, 2010

First Ever SMILE Conference Begins Today

The first ever Social Media in Law Enforcement Conference begins today and runs through Friday, April 9, 2010 in Washington, D.C. The goal of the conference is to bring law enforcement officers together from around the globe to learn how social media is being used to combat crime. The use of social media in law enforcement is still in its early stages but is already being used by hundreds of police agencies.

Lauri Stevens organized the SMILE Conference after seeing a growing interest in the incorporation of new media into law enforcement. Stevens is the founder of LAwS Communications, an organization that helps law enforcement agencies with web solutions, and is the current Chair of Web Development and Interactive Media at The New England Institute of Art, according to an article in yesterday's Huffington Post by Lon S. Cohen.

The aim of using social media in police work is to not only help officers connect the dots by breaking down communication barriers between agencies. It is also exciting to see law enforcement open their investigations more to the public who can spread the word more quickly about missing persons or suspects.

Read more about the SMILE Conference in this Huffington Post article. How do you feel about the use of social media in fields like law enforcement? Who else do you think could benefit from this new media?

1 comment:

Mikey G said...

With all of the recent flash mobs around the Philadelphia area, we need local police officers to attend this training/conference and really get an handle on how to stop things like this from happening before they start. They also recently had a 3 minute freeze that was organized on social media. It was held in 30th street station. People all met at 6 or 6:30pm and froze in place for 3 minutes. It was non violent and newspapers found out about it before it happened, so it wasn't a bad thing. This conference needed to happen, but I feel like it should of been proactive, not reactive on the criminal justice systems part. Good post! =)