myAIPM“Show this thread”: policing, disruption and mobilisation through Twitter.
An analysis of UK law enforcement tweeting practices during the Covid-19 pandemic
Manja Nikolovska, Shane D. Johnson & Paul Ekblom | Crime Science
Abstract
Crisis and disruption are often unpredictable and can create opportunities for crime. During such times, policing may also need to meet additional challenges to handle the disruption. The use of social media by officials can be essential for crisis mitigation and crime reduction. In this paper, we study the use of Twitter for crime mitigation and reduction by UK police (and associated) agencies in the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic. Our findings suggest that whilst most of the tweets from our sample concerned issues that were not specifically about crime, especially during the first stages of the pandemic, there was a significant increase in tweets about fraud, cybercrime and domestic abuse. There was also an increase in retweeting activity as opposed to the creation of original messages. Moreover, in terms of the impact of tweets, as measured by the rate at which they are retweeted, followers were more likely to ‘spread the word’ when the tweet was content-rich (discussed a crime specific matter and contained media), and account holders were themselves more active on Twitter. Considering the changing world we live in, criminal opportunity is likely to evolve. To help mitigate this, policy makers and researchers should consider more systematic approaches to developing social media communication strategies for the purpose of crime mitigation and reduction during disruption and change more generally. We suggest a framework for so doing.
Introduction
The Covid-19 pandemic has had a profound effect on society worldwide, influencing how we work, interact with others, and travel. Unsurprisingly, it has also had an impact on crime, with studies suggesting that lockdown restrictions have been associated with reductions in crimes reported to the police for offences including burglary (e.g. Ashby 2020; Halford et al. 2020; Felson et al. 2020), shoplifting (e.g. Halford et al. 2020), and assault (e.g. Halford et al. 2020). Studies concerned with domestic abuse (Usher et al. 2020, Piquero et. al 2020; Campbell 2020; Chandanet et al. 2020; Boserup et al 2020, Pfitzner et al. 2020) have produced mixed results, with initial spikes being followed by reductions in calls for police service. With such studies it is unclear whether the reductions observed represent reductions in offending or the rate at which offences are reported to the police. Regardless, the patterns observed suggest an impact of the lockdown on these types of crime. While increases in crime have also been reported for cybercrime (Buil-Gil 2020; Hakak et al. 2020), including online fraud (e.g. Naidoo 2020; Cimpanu 2020), malware (Brumfield 2020), hacking and phishing (Muncaster 2020; Kumaran and Lugani 2020), Hawdon, Parti and Dearden (2020) report that cybercrime remained unchanged despite the swift change in routine activities. However, data on such crimes is more elusive and analyses—at least in the academic and open source literature—less complete than for more traditional crimes such as those discussed above.
Interestingly, previous research on the impact on crime of previous epidemics/pandemics is limited. Research (Fong and Chang 2011) conducted during the 2003 SARS epidemic examined community collective efficacy in Taiwan in communities that experienced SARS and those that did not. However, the authors did not directly examine the effect of SARS on crime. For this and other reasons, understanding the extent to which Covid-19 has impacted crime is important and will doubtless feature strongly in academic research in future.Footnote1
To provide a complete picture of what has and will happen, will require access to police recorded crime data, but also that reported to, or collected by other organisations. This is because not all crimes (e.g. domestic abuse) are reported to the police and because patterns of reporting may have changed during the lockdown. Additional insight may also be gained about patterns of offending, and concerns about this, from analysis of data posted to social media platforms, such as Twitter. In this paper, we analyse data from UK government and law enforcement Twitter accounts with a view to understanding how law enforcement used this platform to inform the public about crime risk and what to do about it during the early stages of the pandemic. While our focus here is on the Covid-19 pandemic, we consider this to be just one example of disruptions to society with the potential to impact on crime opportunity and motivation, and security. As such, we view the research that follows as having implications for other future large-scale disruptions, and national and global emergencies, and how society prepares for them, including anticipating their consequences for crime and security.
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“Show this thread”: policing, disruption and mobilisation through Twitter. An analysis of UK law enforcement tweeting practices during the Covid-19 pandemic, Manja Nikolovska, Shane D. Johnson & Paul Ekblom, Crime Science, 2020