Everybody’s talking at me…

Trolling is one of the worst examples of internet misuse, is police investigation the solution considering the vast scale of the problem though?

As an officer heavily invested in social media as a valuable tool for helping promote the openness of the police, I’m often approached for advice on how best to proceed when we get allegations involving the misuse of sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

It’s a topic that I touch on from time to time on this blog too, relating to how we use social media and the best ways to tackle issues arising from its misuse.

Last August I’d written about proportionate ways to respond to online trolling and harassment, the summary being that in many cases the proportionate course of action may well be to block the offending accounts and make a report to site admins.

Looking at the issues raised this week by the offensive tweets sent to Caroline Criado-Perez and MP Stella Creasy, the same problems around launching police action resurface.

Traditional police action taken to look into every instance – described as “about 50 abusive tweets an hour for about 12 hours” – would conceivably necessitate an investigation on a truly vast scale.

There’d likely be hundreds of individual offenders to question spread across the whole of the country, each needing identification, arrest and interview.

Stemming from these enquiries, there’d be hundreds of computers to seize, thousands of hours spent preparing court files and a similar knock on effect felt the whole way down the justice system.

The resources involved for such an investigation would be massive, far beyond anything that police budgets could reasonably sustain with officers taken away from other duties accordingly.

This, baring in mind, is for one case and a case that sadly is not unique – the complaint and associated workload ought be repeated thousands of times by other users of social media experiencing similar issues.

Looking from this point of view at what is a very serious, distressing experience for those suffering trolling, the solution I don’t think can lie with the police alone.

Such huge criminal investigations are neither proportionate or sustainable in relation to the scale of the problem faced.

Rather, the problems needs to be tackled at source and that starts with the sites themselves.

Offending accounts need to be blocked but to prevent further issues, there’s a requirement for sites to offer a genuinely effective abuse reporting function and take steps to ensure that the upsetting example highlighted by Ms Criado-Perez is not a regular occurrence.

Options to flag trolling accounts in an easy, responsive way are a requirement and it’s the site creators that need to arrange this.

Sites such as Twitter and Facebook are the gatekeepers and need to take responsibility as such, the police can’t be left to do the job for them.

Nobody told me there’d be days like this…

Disclosure schemes are being trialled allowing applicants to check their partner’s past for violence, how might they help address the issue of domestic abuse?

This week in the news there have been calls to expand a pilot of a scheme under which applicants could be given advanced warning of their partner’s violent past.

The Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme, otherwise known as Clare’s Law’, allows concerned parties to approach the police and request information about someone’s criminal record should they be concerned about violence becoming an issue.

So far trialled in four forces including Greater Manchester, Clare’s Law operates in a very similar way to Sarah’s Law, the scheme under which members of the public can make similar applications for information in relation to a child they feel may be at risk of sexual abuse.

Whilst Clare’s Law has yet to progress beyond the pilot stage, several disclosures have been made by forces in cases where they’ve thought there is relevant information the applicant ought to know.

I guess you could liken such schemes to the criminal record background checks made by employers when they’re looking to recruit for sensitive jobs – the advantages and disadvantages are similar too.

A principle disadvantage is that a clean record doesn’t necessarily give grounds for trust, it could be that someone has a violent past but simply not been caught.

A lack of anything on records could give a false sense of security and similarly, would disclosures simply be of court convictions or would they go into deeper detail about cases in which charges couldn’t be brought?

Different impressions may be given depending on what information is disclosed and how it is interpreted, what happens with the information likewise may cause concern should it be passed to third parties.

More positively though, giving past offending history to potential victims may put them into a much better position to appreciate the risk they could be in and to take action accordingly.

Armed with the knowledge early on, I imagine there would be a better opportunity to leave a relationship than would be available at a later point where the abuse has gradually increased to a point where the victim feels trapped.

It’s a peculiar barrier holding information on our systems but not being allowed to warn someone that they may be at risk of serious harm, a mechanism such as Clare’s Law would be useful to help overcome this.

In helping provide said warning to potential victims, Clare’s Law could be a useful tool in our toolbox.

What it isn’t though is a standalone solution – it’s a combination of tools that’ll help us tackle the problem effectively.

Working from seven to eleven every night…

Demonstrations in Birmingham over the weekend saw us officers switched to twelve hour shifts. Sudden developments such as this are a part of the job we have to learn to live with.

Unpredictability is pretty much the only thing about police work that can be predicted with any certainty.

Even the simplest ambitions for a shift get thrown out the window when you walk into the station and get told ‘such and such has happened, kit up and get on the carrier’.

Such was the case this week when on Wednesday I came into work to first meet someone in the locker room who said “Have you heard, we’re all on until two in the morning?”.

Always preferring to double check, my sergeant says the same as I walked into the office and then there it was on the intranet – all officers now to work twelve hour shifts with immediate effect.

Knowing that there’s no wriggle room when the message has come from one of our Assistant Chief Constables, the next thing that happens is that you suddenly realise you’re going to need to rearrange any plans you had.

The work to-do list is one thing, the real issues come though when officers realise they’re not going to be able to pick up their children from school, they won’t be able to make the evening’s dinner party or the last train home.

A flurry of phone calls follows with partners, probably not for the first time, working out how they’re going to ensure the cat still gets fed that night.

Whilst it’s not uncommon to find officers working an hour or two past the time at which they thought they might have been going home, thankfully blanket shift extensions are much rarer.

Awkward they can be, they do have the effect though of pulling everyone together with officers helping each other cope with the toll of the longer days and lack of rest.

With applications for Specials opening at some point soon and regular recruitment perhaps to follow*, this unpredictable side of the job needs to be factored in when those interested think if the job’s really for them.

The public comes first and they always will – being able to put the public first requires a flexibility that few other jobs will ever call for.

* Nope, haven’t heard anything about us recruiting but will let you know when I do!

I can make you ice cream, we could be a sweet team…

Some of our fine country’s most important ice cream regulations are changing, read below for the details you NEED to know! (Image from Rept0n1x)

Today I have learnt two things about a subject that previously I had considered myself somewhat of an expert on.*

First of all, there are regulations covering the use of jingles by ice cream vans.

Secondly, those regulations are changing.

Yes, unbeknown to almost anyone who doesn’t happen to be an ice cream man, for the past thirty one years the ‘Code of Practice on Noise from Ice-Cream Van Chimes Etc. 1982‘ has governed the playing of Greensleeves in our land.

Rather than being law as such, the Code rather is there for advice as to what’s reasonable when it comes to promoting the sale of delicious frozen goods to excited, well-rounded children.

To sum up the guidance, the Code’s key points are as follows –

• Chimes can only be played between 12:00 and 19:00
• Chimes shouldn’t be any louder than 80 dB**
• Jingles can’t be any longer than four seconds
• Said jingles shouldn’t be played any more frequently than once every three minutes
• They shouldn’t be played more than once every two hours in a particular length of street***
• Care should be taken not to play chimes within fifty metres of a hospital, school or church

So the above summarises my first bit of new ice cream knowledge for the day, now for the second – the Code has been subject to a revision ordered by none other than Number Ten.

Yes, apparently ice cream vending regulations are such an important issue as to penetrate the deepest, darkest levels of government and no doubt have also been brought up in emergency Pentagon briefings across the Atlantic.

Last year a consultation was launched in which options were proposed to either keep the Code, make it less restrictive, keep it but take it out of legislation, or to just bin it all together.

Perhaps reflecting the lack of knowledge of the Codes in the first place, let alone a consultation on them, a grand total of fifty seven responses were received which included representations from the powerful Ice Cream Alliance.

Despite the cool response, generally flavoured was the proposal to make the Code less draconian and just let the goodly ice cream men get on with the job of dishing out whipped ice cream to one and all.

As such, the Code will now generously allow the following –

• Jingles played for up to TWELVE seconds
• Time between jingles reduced from three to TWO minutes
• Greensleeves can now be played a single time whilst vehicle is stationary

So now you know, we have a code covering ice cream jingles with knowledge of which you can spend about as long interesting your friends as the jingles themselves should be played for!

* My qualifications include Magnums, Cornettos and the Pizza Hut ‘Ice Cream Factory’
** The measuring microphone should be at a height of 1.2 metres above the ground, and at a distance of 7.5 metres from the loudspeaker. The microphone should, where necessary, be fitted with a windshield and the meter should be calibrated prior to use
*** A ‘particular length of street’ should normally be interpreted as being a length of street between 100 and 150 metres long.

Life Thru A Lens…

Continuing along the same technology theme as my last blog on modernising the courts, I noticed today this story over on TechRadar about a chap who whilst wearing a yet-to-be fashionable pair of Google Glasses happened to record a fight and arrest happening right in front of him.

If you’re unfamiliar with Google Glass, Google have basically invented the glasses worn by Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge in ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ so that us non-space travellers can use them.

If that still doesn’t clear things up, they’re fancy geek specs with a camera attached.

Whilst his above video doesn’t show anything particularly interesting, that the footage was captured in the first place illustrates the proliferation of personal recording devices and suggests how useful the availability of their footage could be to police.

Every year since some bright spark decided to glue a camera to a mobile phone, more and more people have been able to capture photos and videos of things happening on the spot.

This can be a valuable source of evidence and is an entirely new capability put into the hands of the public who can now capture the aftermath of a tube bombing just as easily as they can grab a snap of JLS walking down the street.

I’ve dealt with several cases now in which video evidence from a mobile phone showing an offence has formed an important part of the case and in my experience, it can be very useful indeed as the evidence can be so strong.

Witness statements are good for an initial account but their details can be challenged – it’s far harder for a suspect to deny an offence if they’re clearly on camera up to no good.

As such it’s likely cases can be progressed more efficiently with fewer ‘not guilty’ pleas and more full and frank admissions.

This means less officer time spent sorting out ID parades, completing court files and the other things that they might have to do should a suspect decide to challenge the case.

Requests for mobile footage often now form a part of our witness appeals and whilst forces have yet to develop a portal allowing the public to submit footage to us online, I’m sure this is something that will be looked at as it’d be very handy.*

There’s no reason that the collection of personally recorded images should be restricted to the public though, indeed forces including my own have already been trialling body-worn cameras.

Hampshire Constabulary have issued them to all of their response officers, the collected footage being presented to court and also helping to reduce complaints against officers.

Again, it’s the quality of the evidence collected that would be hugely beneficial and when used openly and responsibly, I can see very few disadvantages to their use.

It’s likely to be a few years before you see officers walking around looking like cyborgs, for the reasons outlined above though personally collected footage will feature in cases increasingly frequently as a very helpful source of evidence.

* Whilst I’m not aware of a dedicated online portal being used by any forces at the moment, the Facewatch site that has featured on this blog before could almost certainly be adapted for the purpose.