Police agencies are using technology and social media tools to make up for crippling budget cuts. The new techniques, which include working with private business groups online in real time,  are very different from the old policies of law enforcement that dictate that the public be kept in the dark about ongoing investigations.

The purpose of the new technique is to utilize the assets at hand as a means of making up for the loss of criminal justice officials as a result of budget cuts. Although controversial, technology is helping law enforcement locate violent crime suspects, track fugitives, and trace the paths of thieves by immediately posting surveillance pictures of suspects on sites like Facebook. This not only utilizes the aid of the public and participating businesses, but it has the ability to warn possible future targets of the suspects, ideally preventing repeat offenders.

Cities in New Mexico, California, Georgia, Minnesota, and Washington are among the police agencies supplementing technology for jobs. “Technology can never fully replace an officer,” said Camden, N.J. Police Chief Scott Thomson, “We’re just trying to leverage technology to appear bigger than we are.”

Camden had the highest crime rate in the U.S. in 2008 with a total of 2,333 violent crimes per 100,000 people (which is well above the national average of 455 per 100,000). As the most dangerous city in the U.S. in 2004, 2005, and 2009, the Camden police department, among others, needs to make use of whatever resources available, especially considering the fact that the 250-officer department has nearly been cut in half since 2006.

Fortunately, Camden police officers have been able to use online global positioning systems, gunshot detectors, and closed-circuit cameras to detect and monitor crime ridden areas of the city in order to dispatch the remaining officers more efficiently.

A survey by the Police Executive Research Forum in Washington found that 86% of police agencies currently use social media (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, or YouTube) to monitor crime, despite finding that some employees have been caught using the sites to send and post “inappropriate messages and pictures”. It seems that police agencies have weighed the costs and benefits of using such social media tools and technology and found that the benefits of preventing and acting on crimes outweigh the misuse of Facebook.