Ecology Application Letter

Discussion 6
Name
Institution
Discussion 6
Social media has become an integral part of today’s life. Most people have become addicted to the use of social networking sites, in particular, Facebook where they share their information, photos, and videos. Initially, Facebook was used as a communication tool to interact and connect with family, friends, and other online users across the world. However, in recent years, it has become a valuable tool in forensic investigations.
When an individual shares a photo or video on Facebook, people often add comments regarding the posted item. Furthermore, some of these social data is posted by criminals to brag about crimes they perpetrate. Their intention can be either to intimidate the victims or coordinate offline activities (Piett, 2012). By doing this, they make it easy for investigative teams to track them besides using the information posted in the comments section to strengthen the incriminating evidence.
As noted earlier, we are living in a world where almost everybody has access to social media including felons, suspects, and victims. People cannot shut up and will always make their activities public by posting on Facebook. This has been of great help to law enforcement officers as they are able to uncover illegitimate activities (P1 Leaders Digital Edition, 2017). These officers are well-trained on investigation matters that ultimately lead to the arrests. For instance, the cases of social media posts concerning violence against children are on the rise.

Thus, police officers are able to track down the perpetrators of such crimes and arrest them.
Social media has also enabled law enforcement officers to prevent crimes. Notably, present-day criminals communicate through Facebook to plan how to commit a certain crime. The police are able to thwart crimes that are about to occur by using a specific software to discover online discussions (P1 Leaders Digital Edition, 2017). This has played a key role in saving lives. Again, police officers use Facebook to post photos of wanted criminals with the hope of getting information from the public to apprehend the suspects.
References
Piett, T. (2012, Feb 13). How law enforcement uses social media for forensic investigation. Mashable. Available from https://mashable.com/2012/02/13/social-media-forensics/#VAgDFNUlo5qI.
P1 Leaders Digital Edition. (2017, Feb 13). Thinking outside the box: Police use of social media to catch criminals. PoliceOne. Retrieved from https://www.policeone.com/police-products/investigation/Investigative-Software/articles/290047006-Thinking-outside-the-box-Police-use-of-social-media-to-catch-criminals/