Facebook is the new Neighborhood Watch
- pottstownmercury
- Mar 9, 2015
- 5 min read
Police departments, citizen groups connecting through social media
By Evan Brandt
Facebook is the Neighborhood Watch of the 21st century — at least, that’s how Upper Pottsgrove Police Chief William Moffett describes it.
“Facebook does what Neighborhood Watch used to do 20 or 30 years ago,” said the 45-year law enforcement veteran. “It takes the eyes on the street and passes information along.”
Moffett is not alone in his appreciation for Facebook as a crime-fighting tool.
“It’s a very effective tool for community policing,” said Spring City Police Chief Anthony Kuklinski.
“It’s probably the best thing we’ve ever tried in terms of new tools. If there’s a down side, I haven’t seen it yet.”
Kuklinski said he first saw the value of using new ways of communicating with the public when he saw the popularity and effectiveness of The Mercury’s decision to begin posting Pottstown’s Most Wanted Criminals on its Pinterest page, an innovation which drew national attention.
“So we started posting some of our most-wanted on our Facebook page and The Mercury police reporter at the time, Brandie Kessler, picked it up,” Kuklinski said.
“Within 24 hours, we had tips and had picked up a guy we had been looking for who stole $60,000 from an auto parts store,” he said.
“We had a guy who ripped off a hardware store and we put the surveillance video from the store up on our Facebook page,” Kuklinski recalled.
“Two hours later, his wife dragged him into the police station after she saw the video,” he said. “It’s very effective.”
Both chiefs also said it not only improves communication with the community and provides “transparency,” it is also useful for putting out warnings and for what Moffett called “rumor patrol.”
”I like it because we have control over the information we’re putting out there,” said Moffett.
In addition to the department’s own Facebook page, Moffett also monitors pages set up by neighborhoods, such as the Turnberry Farms page.
”Facebook allows me to target neighborhoods, if they’re being victimized, and post warnings about crime in the area,” he said.
“I can also use it to kill a lot of rumors,” he added. “I saw people complaining on the Turnberry page that they hadn’t seen a police car in a month, then it was six months. I was able to use our patrol car GPS logs to tell them exactly how many times we had been there in the past month.”
Pottstown Police Captain Robert Thomas says the Internet and Facebook allow perceptions of crime to grow, sometimes out of proportion.
“The numbers show that crime isn’t necessarily getting worse, but people’s ability to know about something happening has grown because of the Internet,” he said.
“So before, when maybe just the neighbors know about an incident, now 100 people know and can speculate on what’s going on without having very much information,” Thomas said.
But even though the Pottstown Police Department, has been slow about getting on the Facebook bandwagon, they has seen examples of its value.
In October, a video showing two young women fighting on High Street while others urged them on was posted on the Crime in Pottstown Facebook page.
Pottstown Police Capt. Robert Thomas said police had initially responded to the call, but no one at the scene would talk to the officers and so no arrests were made.
But after the video was posted “we arrested them all based on that evidence.”
“We have our own Facebook page now and we’re trying to get information out on a more regular basis,” said Pottstown Police Chief Richard Drumheller.
But they have a long way to go to catch up to the Crime in Pottstown Facebook page which has been going strong for the past year and has grown in popularity.
The founder and primary operator of that page agreed to speak with The Mercury provided his name was withheld.
He said he started seeing problems in his neighborhood “after police started cracking down in the Washington Street corridor, after that, I started seeing more evidence of the drugs in the area.”
At home during the day, allowing him to see much more activity that his neighbors don’t see while they’re working, the page’s founder said he was increasingly frustrated by what he saw as their refusal to recognize the growing problem.
“I’ve had people say to me that if you have a drug dealer living two doors down and he leaves you alone and you leave him alone, it’s not a problem,” he said.
“But it’s the traffic he is bringing to your neighborhood, scumbags you don’t know. And remember that dealers are often targets themselves, and when they get robbed, it’s usually with guns, and that’s when the shooting starts,” he said.
“If we can get people to understand you don’t have to take it, or hush it up, hopefully, more people will come forward,” he said.
He had seen it happen before.
“I grew up in West Philly and it was a nice neighborhood, and now it’s a shooting gallery,” he said. “I went into the service and when I was walking down the street with my duffle bag four years later, the whole place had gone to hell.”
“I saw my friends and asked them what happened to the neighborhood, and they just shrugged their shoulders and said ‘what are ya gonna do?’”
“I told them if nobody does anything, it’s only going to get worse. What is happening shouldn’t be allowed to stand.”
Now, he worries he is seeing it happen again.
“One day, I woke up and realized that if I wasn’t doing anything, I was one of the sheep, and I needed to take action not just in my neighborhood, but in my community,” he said.
So he and several others founded Crime in Pottstown, which receives and broadcasts tips and information about what people have seen in their neighborhoods.
“We’re trying to warn people about what’s not being reported and more and more people are stepping forward now,” he said.
“When we get tips, we pass them along to the police and I’ve spoken to two officers who’ve said they look at the page,” he said.
“We’re just trying to open up a dialogue with the community and yeah, we’ve seen what other departments are doing,” he said. “We’re amazed at how much departments like Limerick and Upper Pottsgrove correspond with their residents through Facebook.
“We’ve had really good success with Facebook and I know we’ve prevented a lot of crimes,” said Moffett.
“We get good feedback from the residents and it allows them to see that they’re getting good service from their police department,” Moffett said.
“It provides a level of transparency,” said Kuklinski. “People in town can see what the police are doing.”
“We even use it to push out everyday information,” he said. “So, for example, when there is a snow emergency, we used to write a lot of parking tickets, but now we have another way of letting people know they need to move their car, and they appreciate the reminder.”
“And when we post something, the borough posts it on their Facebook page and their web page and we’re also networked with the Spring City Elementary Home and School Association, so they can share it with their parents as well,” said Kuklinski.
“It’s a great way to keep in contact with our residents, find out what they need, what’s going on and what we’re doing about it.”
Crime in Pottstown’s founder echoed similar sentiments.
“We don’t think we’re perfect, we’re just trying to open a dialogue with the community,” he said.
