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UK Police Force Posts All Its Calls On Twitter

Posted by samzenpus on from the 140-crimes dept.

Stoobalou writes "One of the largest police forces in the UK is posting every incident reported to it today on Twitter. Greater Manchester Police began its 24-hour experiment this morning at 05:00 BST, tweeting all incident reports in the hope of highlighting the complexity of modern policing. 'Policing is often seen in very simple terms, with cops chasing robbers and locking them up,' Chief Constable Peter Fahy said in a statement. 'However the reality is that this accounts for only part of the work they have to deal with.'"

20 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. First problem report of the day by NYMeatball · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Local authority's twitter account has been hacked"

    1. Re:First problem report of the day by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 3, Funny

      That would explain all the UFO sightings ... and why some pub south of Manchester has been reportedly eaten by a creature resembling Margaret Thatcher. An ABP has been issued for Godzilla in drag.

  2. Sounds like by reitton · · Score: 3, Funny

    A great day for a HEIST, just be out of there within 2 minutes of them twittering the call.

    1. Re:Sounds like by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Report a tasty false alarm or two across town (crime or celeb related), wait for your distraction to hit the tweetisphere and go hit your target while they deal with the crazy crowd control at your false alarm.

  3. So by frozentier · · Score: 3, Insightful

    In showing how complex and difficult their daily job is, they decided to add the burden of posting every call on Twitter. That makes sense.

    1. Re:So by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      # call 1068 bag stolen in street in Oldham #gmp24
      # call 1069 bag of sand obstructing traffic in Oldham #gmp24


      1) steal a bag of sand
      2) obstruct traffic with said bag
      3) ???
      4) profit!

    2. Re:So by elvum · · Score: 4, Insightful

      To be fair, this is two staff from the PR department doing the tweeting, not front-line police officers. Given the publicity they've received in return for those two person-days of effort, it seems like pretty good value to me.

    3. Re:So by slimjim8094 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Jesus, you have *no* idea what you're talking about.

      First of all, only a small portion of the force is on at any given time. It's not like there are 10k cops walking around all the time, they need to sleep occasionally and take days off. And the ones that are on duty but not going to a call are patrolling, not watching TV.
      Second of all, if somebody wants to report it, they have to come and take the report. That's how it works - they don't just seek out posts.
      Third of all, while somebody complaining about a Facebook post seems a little silly, it could easily be a serious death threat from a crazy ex, or something. We don't know - but it could easily be something that you'd want to report.
      Fourth of all, why are the *police* part of this "whining women" bunch? Support that statement

      In short, fuck off. You're not clever or witty, just a stupid asshole. It's a travesty that some other stupid asshole thought you qualified as "Insightful"

      --
      I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
    4. Re:So by Smidge204 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Because every single one of those 10,000 people is dedicated to answering the phone.

      According to the paper you linked, they only have 7000 officers to cover 500 square miles. The entire point of this exercise is to highlight the sheer volume of work they have to deal with and how much of their time is wasted on bullshit calls.

      Quite frankly I wish MORE police agencies would do similar. This should be public information to begin with, and it helps create awareness of what these people go through on a daily basis. The transparency is nice. It takes all of 20 seconds for the person taking the call to type it out.
      =Smidge=

    5. Re:So by RollingThunder · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I would hope that they are.

      The 999 system data would not be sufficiently anonymized and be too long for twitter's character limit. I would also prefer to know there's at least some separation between the E999 networks, and the general internet.

      Rather than risking an automated filter, and since this is a single-day thing, it makes more sense to bruteforce it. If it was going to be a permanent fixture then I could see the value in going whole-hog and automating it.

    6. Re:So by delinear · · Score: 2, Informative

      I'd guess to try and improve their public profile (you might find this surprising, but in some parts of society the police are not fondly viewed) and probably to attract funding from the private sector.

    7. Re:So by Rising+Ape · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Policeman per unit population is a more sensible measure than per square mile anyway. Land doesn't commit crimes.

      The UK is much more densely populated than the USA, don't forget.

    8. Re:So by Cederic · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The UK government are planning to significantly reduce public spending. The police receive criticism for being very expensive even though there's a lot of crime.

      Posting routine activities on Twitter demonstrates the range of tasks the police have to do, which makes it easier to justify the cost of policing, increases public understanding of the role of the police (thus making it easier for the police to work with the public) and may also help reduce the number of false emergency calls received (which do have a very real cost and distract from the genuine emergencies).

      For a couple of days effort it's a reasonable idea - shame they've cocked it up.

  4. Excellent parodies also available. by elvum · · Score: 4, Funny

    Take a look at the excellent parodies too.

    1. Re:Excellent parodies also available. by Dan+Dankleton · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Sadly, some of the real calls are indistinguishable from parodies.
      http://twitter.com/gmp24_1/status/27329849789
      http://twitter.com/gmp24_3/status/27326427592
      http://twitter.com/gmp24_4/status/27328848357

      The last one is possibly the oddest.

  5. I like the idea. by TheDarkMaster · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's a good idea. I work indirectly for a section of the government whose goal is to solve disasters in cities, and because of that I have access to recorded events attended by firefighters. Happens things all the time every day, more than 30, 50 events per day, and the most varied situations as possible. The public thinks that firefighters only fights fires, but when you are there "in" seeing what happens see that they actually do much more than that. The same for the cops.

    --
    Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
  6. Spoof accounts targeted by police by Blacklaw · · Score: 2, Informative

    Looks like the GMP doesn't have much of a sense of humour - it's threatening spoof account holders with the crime of impersonating a police officer. Shame, because some of 'em are very well done - such as the Super Mario Brothers version...

  7. Local volunteer fire departments already do this by digitaldc · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is not new.

    The complexity of modern policing is trying to figure out if a petty criminal is more dangerous to a large group of citizens than a corporation committing massive fraud.

    --
    He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
  8. Re:Delay? by elvum · · Score: 2, Informative

    Police in the UK use TETRA, an encrypted radio system.

  9. well, my [cohabitor]'s abusing me... by FuckingNickName · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...and I know what happens if he finds out I've reported it, so I guess I won't now.