Deriving requirements for social media based community policing: insights from police

Community policing helps curb high crime rate and overcome limited police resources. The success of community policing depends on active citizen participation. Previous research shows Online Social Networks (OSN) such as Facebook encourage active citizen participation during law and order situations. However, little is known about role of OSN in developing community relations between police and citizens. Developing countries such as India have limited police personnel which increases the need of community policing. This project explores perceptions of senior police officers on the role of OSN and develops a set of requirements for an OSN based system that can enhance citizens' interaction with police. From the interview of twenty officers of Indian Police Services (IPS), we show four broad aspects in which OSN helps community policing: (1) strengthen social ties, (2) enforce social norms, (3) enable citizen reporting, and (4) keep citizens informed.