research-article

Social networks for police and residents in India: exploring online communication for crime prevention

Authors:

Niharika Sachdeva,

Ponnurangam KumaraguruAuthors Info & Claims

dg.o '15: Proceedings of the 16th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research

Pages 256 - 265

https://doi.org/10.1145/2757401.2757420

Published: 27 May 2015 Publication History

Abstract

Safety is a concern for most urban communities; residents interact in multiple ways with the police to address their safety concerns. Positive interactions with police help residents to feel safe. In developing countries, residents have started to use Online Social Networks (OSN) such as Facebook to share concerns and seek solutions. In this study, we investigate whether residents' post on OSN contain actionable information that police can use to address safety concerns and how residents use OSN to communicate with police. For this, we analyze residents' posts and comments on the Facebook page of Bangalore City Police, India, over a period of one month. Our results show that residents post information (including location) about various crimes such as neighborhood issues (drunkards, illegal construction), financial frauds, property crime, and thefts. In addition to crime, Facebook page gives information on residents' satisfaction and police performance. Majority of residents use police Facebook page to appreciate the good work of police. Police response to residents' post vary from ignore, acknowledge, reply, and follow-up. We find that police respond to most residents' post and help residents to reach the authority who can help solve the issue. Police adopt a formal communication style to interact with residents. We find that in addition to actionable information, OSN can help understand fear of crime among residents and develop mutual accountability between police and residents.

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Cited By

Zhang YLo SMyint P(2025)Empowering crisis information extraction through actionability event schemata and domain-adaptive pre-trainingInformation and Management10.1016/j.im.2024.10406562:1Online publication date: 1-Jan-2025
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.im.2024.104065
Chordia IKim JLiu ZPark HGarrett LErete SLe Dantec CYip JHiniker A(2024)Tuning into the World: Designing Community Safety Technologies to Reduce Dysfunctional Fear of CrimeProceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3643834.3661578(3097-3116)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3643834.3661578
Otuu OAnajemba JAguboshim FSahoo D(2024)An Analysis of Technological Applications in Community Policing and Their Performance Assessment Through A Systematic ReviewAdvances in Computing10.1007/978-3-031-75236-0_25(345-360)Online publication date: 22-Dec-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-75236-0_25
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Index Terms

Social networks for police and residents in India: exploring online communication for crime prevention
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Collaborative and social computing
    1. Collaborative and social computing theory, concepts and paradigms
      1. Computer supported cooperative work
2. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing and business
      1. Computer supported cooperative work

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Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences

dg.o '15: Proceedings of the 16th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research

May 2015

369 pages

ISBN:9781450336000

DOI:10.1145/2757401

Conference Chairs:
Karen Mossberger
Arizona State University
,
Natalie Helbig
New York State Department of Health
,
Program Chairs:
Jing Zhang
Clark University
,
Yushim Kim
Arizona State University

Copyright © 2015 ACM.

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Publication History

Published: 27 May 2015

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dg.o 2015

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Arizona State University

dg.o 2015: 16th Annual International Digital Government Research Conference

May 27 - 30, 2015

Arizona, Phoenix

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Cited By

Zhang YLo SMyint P(2025)Empowering crisis information extraction through actionability event schemata and domain-adaptive pre-trainingInformation and Management10.1016/j.im.2024.10406562:1Online publication date: 1-Jan-2025
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.im.2024.104065
Chordia IKim JLiu ZPark HGarrett LErete SLe Dantec CYip JHiniker A(2024)Tuning into the World: Designing Community Safety Technologies to Reduce Dysfunctional Fear of CrimeProceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3643834.3661578(3097-3116)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3643834.3661578
Otuu OAnajemba JAguboshim FSahoo D(2024)An Analysis of Technological Applications in Community Policing and Their Performance Assessment Through A Systematic ReviewAdvances in Computing10.1007/978-3-031-75236-0_25(345-360)Online publication date: 22-Dec-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-75236-0_25
Chordia ITran LTayebi TParrish EErete SYip JHiniker A(2023)Deceptive Design Patterns in Safety Technologies: A Case Study of the Citizen AppProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3581258(1-18)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3544548.3581258
Wu QHemsley J(2023) Hyper‐Local Fear of Crime: Identifying Linguistic Cues of Fear in Crime Talk on Reddit Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology10.1002/pra2.80360:1(456-468)Online publication date: 22-Oct-2023
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Wu QWilliams LSimpson ESemaan B(2022)Conversations About Crime: Re-Enforcing and Fighting Against Platformed Racism on RedditProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35129016:CSCW1(1-38)Online publication date: 7-Apr-2022
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Michael AA. P. K. A(2020)Like, Comment and Share: A Study on the Impact of the Facebook Campaign of the Kerala Police During the COVID 19 LockdownKristu Jayanti Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences (KJHSS)10.59176/kjhss.v1i0.1306(46-54)Online publication date: 25-Nov-2020
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Wu QGupta SHuang YJanssen MChun SWeerakkody V(2018)Examining conversations between police agencies and the public on FacebookProceedings of the 19th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research: Governance in the Data Age10.1145/3209281.3209371(1-10)Online publication date: 30-May-2018
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