British police use Twitter to show the world, tax payers, and politicians just how busy they are

Filed under: Social Software

Finally, a British police force -- the northern tribalists of Greater Manchester -- has found a valid, socially-conscientious purpose for Twitter. Over the next 24 hours, Greater Manchester Police will be publishing every incident that it deals with on Twitter.

The police force's chief constable, Peter Fahy, wants to show the world just how much they deal with in a single day, both in terms of volume and complexity. "Policing is often seen in very simple terms, with cops chasing robbers and locking them up. However the reality is that this accounts for only part of the work they have to deal with," Fahy says. "A lot of what we do is dealing with social problems such as missing children, people with mental health problems, and domestic abuse. Often these incidents can be incredibly complex and need a lot of time, resource, and expertise."

If you want to follow what they get up to, you need to follow three Twitter accounts (because of their high volume!) @GMP24_1, @GMP24_2, and @GMP24_3. There's also a hash tag (#GMP24) which, at the time of publishing, looks like it may become a trending topic.

British police use Twitter to show the world, tax payers, and politicians just how busy they are originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 14 Oct 2010 07:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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