Kappeler: Community Policing, 6th Edition


Case Studies with Questions and Answers

Chapter 03: The Changing Meaning of Community

You are the sheriff of a large rural area. You have recently implemented a community policing model and you have been trying to think of ways to engage the community. Some of the things that your agency is doing to reach the community includes holding monthly community meetings, sending out quarterly newsletters (describing crime rates and trends, safety and security tips, and community programs), and hosting citizen police academies.

Your efforts have largely been successful with older citizens in the community, but you have not been able to connect in the same with younger citizens. You are trying to think of ways to connect with these individuals and you think the implementation of a virtual community may be what your department needs.

Questions

  1. What is a virtual community?
  2. Correct Answer

    A virtual community is a communicative network of people who interact through technologies for social proposes and to exchange information and ideas about mutual interests. This type of community can arise through various mediums including email, message boards, chat rooms, or social networking sites designed to allow people to communicate.


  3. What are the four Internet based technologies that are common to most virtual communities? Give a brief description of each.
  4. Correct Answer

    E-mail— The presence of computers and internet access in virtually all large businesses and in most homes today provides the tools needed to implement an email-based system. Email allows near instant access to potentially thousands of end users and, equally important, it allows for a direct means of communication back to the agency.

    Web-portals—can provide virtually unlimited access to large numbers of users. Reports and notifications can be archived and links to other agencies and resources can make volumes of information easily accessible. In addition, more sophisticated sites are offering content in the form of podcasts or enabling users to sign up for RSS feeds. Such uses of technology typically engage a younger, more technologically savvy demographic.

    Web Forums—have the potential to become virtual communities where people gather online to participate in a community of interest. In some cases, a community of interest may even develop into a community of practice, where people deepen their knowledge and expertise in an area and further the practice by interacting on an ongoing basis. Web forums … can be open to the public or limited to a certain group of members. For neighborhood watchleaders, agencies should consider making a forum accessible to the general public, as it will allow it to grow by giving those with an interest in crime prevention an opportunity to either join in the discussions or just stand on the sidelines and observe.

    Groove—Microsoft Office Groove offers a potentially powerful tool for providing a secure environment for sharing information. Designed to facilitate collaboration, Groove provides a law enforcement agency the ability to invite specific users into a secure virtual workspace. … Once invited into a workspace, individuals would be able to share information, conduct discussion threads, and collaborate on documents, all with encryption end-to-end in a secure environment within Groove.


  5. What are some of the more common types of social media used in the virtual community?
  6. Correct Answer

    Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Tumblr, Youtube, Google+


Copyright © 2012, Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.