Growing Number of Witnesses Film Crimes Before Reporting Them to Police
While it can be initially difficult for cops if they must solely rely on social media posts for crime activity rather than getting direct information, the video’s “play well in front of the jury.”
Landwebs
Instead of dialing 911 to inform police of a crime, many people are documenting events as they unfold and immediately sharing them with the rest of the world, reports Axios. University of Miami criminologist and sociology professor Alexis Piquero said that the trend is growing so much that in Miami, for example, police departments have hired people who just monitor social media for crimes because “people aren’t calling them.”
Dean Dabney, professor and chair of the Department of Criminal Justice & Criminology at Georgia State University’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, said it can be initially difficult for cops if they must solely rely on social media posts for crime activity rather than getting direct information. In the long run, those posts do benefit police because, once found, videos posted on social media “play well in front of the jury” because it’s live action.
