Accenture Study Shows Citizens Support Law Enforcement Use of Social Media

By Kalen Smith, Big4 Blogger

A new Accenture study has shown that most global citizens support the use of social media by law enforcement agencies. Accenture spoke with nearly 1,500 citizens from the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands.

Nearly 92% of global citizens said that they supported law enforcement officials and trust them to use technology to do their jobs more effectively. However, most than 80% of the respondents said that they weren’t fully aware of how law enforcement officials performed their responsibilities.

Nearly three quarters of survey respondents believed law enforcement officials could do their jobs more effectively if they used digital communications technology. They expect that local police forces can use social media to manage their organizations more effectively, coordinate public relations campaigns and prevent crimes. However, nearly 90% of citizens said they didn’t believe their law enforcement officials utilized social media and other digital technology.

Although citizens are interested in seeing their law enforcement officials use social media to reduce crime, they still prefer to see police officers using traditional law enforcement procedures. Nearly two-thirds of respondents said they prefer to file a report in person or over the phone. Digital technology is changing law enforcement procedures, but it hasn’t made existing practices obsolete.