POLICE BOX MARCH 2011

Crime Update

Between the 24th and 30th of December there was a break in to business premises near to Abernethy where a large quantity of copper cabling was stolen.

Between the 29th and 30th of December there was a break in to business premises in the village where a quantity of money was stolen.

Both of these crimes are still under investigation but should anyone have any information that might assist with enquiries, please contact your local Community Officer, Euan Mitchell.  

Euan can be contacted by telephone on 0300 111 2222, by email on euan.mitchell@tayside.pnn.police.uk or by Twitter at BridgeofearnPC.  Alternatively you can anonymously contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 to provide information.

Tayside Police Officers Tweet on the Beat

Community police officers in the South Perthshire area will be tweeting on the beat from January as Tayside Police trials a number of social media options aimed at enhancing local policing and community engagement.  The South Perthshire Section is made up of the areas covered by the Auchterarder, Bridge of Earn, Crieff and Kinross Police stations.

Your Community Officer, Euan Mitchell, will be regularly ‘tweeting’ on the beat providing the local communities with up-dates on police surgeries, crime prevention advice, road and traffic information, campaigns, and other community policing issues.

Tayside Police has frequently been at the forefront of new policing methods and has already experimented with Social Media to good effect on a number of occasions.  Effective engagement is at the heart of policing and the revolution in digital technology means that people are engaging with services at their own convenience and in the manner, medium and at a time which suits them.

Many Forces are now realising that traditional methods of getting messages out, which we have relied on in the past, are having less impact and are reaching fewer people.

Simply ‘broadcasting’ messages by whichever channel, is no longer enough.  What really makes a difference is giving people the opportunity to engage in a two way conversation with the police about things that matter to them.

Social networking has exploded globally with sites such as Facebook and Twitter having over 150 million users Worldwide, half of whom use the service on a daily basis.  Twitter is particularly important in sharing breaking news and frequently posts stories before they are reported in the more traditional media forms.  This could prove to be extremely useful in local communities where early warning of road closures or incidents could help to avoid delays and speculation.  It also allows us to have meaningful two way conversations which gives the public an instant voice on how policing is being delivered in their area.

We need to embrace this form of communication because if we don’t engage with people via social media they will move on without us and we will miss the opportunity to influence them, making it much more difficult to re-engage with them later.  We also need to communicate more effectively with members of the public to let them know what we’re doing.  After all, nobody is going to be confident in an organisation which they don’t hear from and which they can’t engage with.

As part of Tayside Police’s social media experiment, the Force is also trialing MyPolice, an online feedback tool designed to enable the public to have an on-line conversation with the police.  The MyPolice service offers those, who do not wish to contact the Force directly, an additional way to give feedback and opinion on policing in their area.  Whilst information provided to the service by the public is moderated by non-police personnel, it will be passed on to Tayside Police.  Tayside Police are the first Police service in the UK to trial an independent on-line feedback tool that allows the public to raise issues and to be given an answer.

We hope this improved access to community officers and the ability to leave comments, both negative and positive, will help us improve our local policing by being responsive to local concerns and by providing speedy feedback to the public.

Euan is on the look out for more ‘followers’ on Twitter at www.twitter.com/BridgeofearnPC or you can visit the MyPolice website at www.tayside.mypolice.org.