Over the years...
law enforcement agencies have struggled to maintain and solidify their public relations due to critical incidents. Law enforcement agencies, therefore, must examine all contributing factors that lead to critical incidents and learn from their mistakes for prevention. To do this, they must also keep a keen eye towards policy and reform.
Despite critical incident reviews being recommended on the 21st century policing of the president’s task force, it is still yet to be completely utilized in the law enforcement setting. For law enforcement agencies, it is not only important to learn from errors but it is also integral to mend relationships with the public and eradicate bad stigma towards the authorities.
The Role of Social Media on Law Enforcement PR
Today, sending out a positive light towards law agencies is much easier through digitalization if used in a strategic manner. Social media is a critical tool when it comes to improving public relations. Law enforcements must focus on social media for community engagement and public relations. The general policing perspective is to operate on the ethos of policing by consent.
Policing by consent is very community-based approaches that need to adopted in high regard by all law enforcers. Police training needs to identify the pain points of the public, and push their good work globally through media that help trigger the pain points. For a long time, law enforcement agencies have been slow to share the positive work and impact they have had.
Today however, promoting a positive side to law enforcement is key when it comes to making PR better. Sharing also helps with community engagement. It is also crucial if you wish to gain acknowledgement and gain appreciation from what you do. The system goes into shambles and faces discriminate scrutiny during wrongful convictions.
Responding to Common Errors
If the law enforcement has convicted someone on a crime that they have not committed, then this accounts as an error. Once this error gets to the public eye, the trickledown impact of this can lead to negative online discussions towards a specific law enforcement agency. These discussions are often fueled by misconceptions and overblown assumptions that manifest newfound hatred for the law enforcers.
However, it is worth noting that wrongful convictions are inevitable, and they can be myriad and multiple. From a system’s perspective, a cold case is also an error. A cold case is a situation in which a person commits the crime, gets caught, and somehow manages to get away with it. Sometimes these errors can be caused by intentional misconduct.
More often, these errors are a result of well-intended decisions that do not play out the way they were supposed to. Any of the errors that occur in the criminal justice system generally start from an inaccurate arrest by the police. These arrests are not necessarily intentional. This is why it is incredibly important to promote accuracy in policing and clear misconceptions in public discussions.
How to Clear Critical Incident Misconceptions in the 21st Century?
Law enforcement officers need to proactively try to humanize the institution. Working to connect with the community can take shape in many forms. The most effective ways of reinventing law enforcement image and boosting community engagement is through branding. Branding in hindsight has to do plenty with improving relationship between media and law enforcement.
Improve Media and Law Enforcement Relationships
It is a very difficult job to find a medium between the police department and the media. However, it is a job that can leverage greatly from branding efforts. Social media is a medium that can get ahead of both, the police department and the traditional media. From the social media aspect, law enforcement agencies need to be more active and engaging.
To do so, they need to initiate the fact of breaking the news to the public before the media gets a hold of it and fills it with wrongful narratives. By doing this, the public gets to here the police enforcement’s story first, and it keeps representatives from
responding to media and public inquiries. In other words, it is important for the police department to have a voice in the conversation department.
Modernized and comprehensive branding allows the police department to have their own unique voice that the people respect, appreciate, and most importantly, trust. Building trust is pivotal for police departments and this is where a good branding
strategy can pay dividend in the instance of a critical incident.
Have a Digital Presence
Having an online presence in today’s age is a necessity. What a law enforcement agency say about themselves and their institution on social media platforms can help expectations correspond with reality. Sometimes people hold very high expectations from the authorities without ever considering the struggles and personal battles that officers also face.
An online presence that portrays a humane picture of policing can help authorities achieve realistic expiations from the public. It can also help the public get a deeper insight on the department, and become more familiar with the task force that is working day and night to keep the neighborhood safe. Moreover, it also helps in the recruiting process as it potential new hires can look at law enforcement as a viable profession.
Your online presence will also be representation of your value and expertise. It is an opportunity for you to present your interest and core values to the public eye. It is helps you display achievements and recent milestones with followers and community. Not to mention, consistent and strategic branding helps make law enforcement agencies appealing to both, the community and talent.
Posting regular content, having a highly user friendly and attractive website, being active on social media platforms are some of the many ways to gain new age interest. These techniques have helped businesses and institutions scale to new heights, and will undoubtedly assist law enforcement agencies.
Seek EPIC Services
When it comes to public relations, EPIC has law enforcement agencies covered. Some of their services include reputation management, public affairs, media training, and critical incident response.
