Community crimes are crimes that happen in your own neighbourhood. Nowadays people deal with these crimes differently. People in the neighbourhood and police officers use more social media to prevent these crimes. Police officers use Facebook and twitter to warn people. It also makes it easier for people to come in contact with a police officer. People can send them a WhatsApp message and ask for help or report a crime.

The use of social media makes it easier for people to go to the police. They don’t have to go to the police station anymore to report a crime. They can just send the police officer a WhatsApp message to ask for advice or make a complaint. 

It also makes it easier for police officers to warn people. If there are lots of burglaries the police officer can post something on Facebook or twitter to warn people. It is an easy way of reaching lots of people.

People can use social media to make their own neighborhood safer. They can make a group app with people in the neighborhood. In the group app they can report shady things that are happening in their neighborhood. Areas who have a neighborhood watch have lower crime rates than neighborhoods who don’t have one.

‘’Social media is the collective of online communications channels dedicated to community-based input, interaction, content-sharing and collaboration’’ (Whatis.com, 2016).    
 

Not only has it become easier to warn your neighbourhood for suspicious activity through social media, notifying the police has also become easier because of social media. 

For example, we have a Whatsapp Group chat with all residents of 2 streets in there, the neighbourhood agent is in there as well. Over the past years that I have lived there, it has occurred a handful of times that a neighbour had a complaint or was worried about somebody walking around another house.
 Notifying the neighbourhood agent through Whatsapp is quick and efficiënt, because he will be right over at the mentioned location.

It’s also great if you need more help than just your neighbourhood agent. 
 About 2 years ago a mother had lost sight of her kid playing outside, our neighbourhood is right next to a forest so it’s understandable that she was hysterical. 
 Again, through the Whatsapp Group somebody made the neighbourhood agent aware of the problem so he could let all other neighbourhood agents in the area search with him. 
 The kid was found in a couple of streets further, by another neighbourhood cop.

But this can work the other way around just fine. Just like the resident scan warn the police, the police can warn the residents too, if neighbourhood agents start noticing strange behavior or things like that, he would be able to tell the locals to keep an eye out for specific things.

That’s why it’s a good thing that Community crime & Prevention has been made accessable to everyone, because we have been seeing an increase in locals and police communicating through social media, and it has worked surprisingly well!

The most important part in a community is the feeling of safety. When the community feels as if they are safe, happiness increases. People help each other to prevent accidents and crimes. The community posts pictures of suspicious people to catch criminals. Not only do people post pictures of crimes but they also warn people about safety issues like, snowed in fire hydrants, icy roads and sometimes traffic. The community of Red Deer has a Facebook group that does exactly this. They post pictures and write paragraphs about suspicious activities. Often times they come in contact with the police. Posting pictures of strangers on the internet without their consent is considered a crime. However the police usually does not arrest people who do this because these communities are helping them catch criminals. These community’s improve the overall safety and security in the region so the police don’t mind. 

As the criminal steals from the first, second and third store and doesn’t seem to quit, a relative opens up the Facebook app and scrolls through the feed. Eventually this person ends up in this live stream, which shows the criminal doing his acts. Envying every action, the person contacts the Facebook helpdesk immediately. 

This helpdesk has direct contact with the police and asks for the police to act at once. The local police department directly responds and rushes to the mall. While driving to the mall, the police check the live stream to indicate what the exact location of the criminal is. Once arrived, they wait for the criminal to do his act one final time before arresting him, so that they can catch him red-handed. 

And as expected, the criminal goes for his 5^th theft but is caught while sneaking out of the store. All stolen objects were returned and the criminal was taken into custody. All in all it only took the police 35 min since the hint from the helpdesk, to catch the criminal. This shows how much social media can help with preventing crimes and catching criminals.