Editorial: Social Media and Criminal Justice Policy Exchange

AuthorPaul Senior
Pages1-4
1
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I have to confess I have become addicted to Twitter. I use it on a daily basis both as a
mechanism for knowledge exchange and information gathering but also for debate,
discussion and enlightenment. I find, increasingly, that academics and researchers of
crime are posting their papers, their blogs, and their thinking on Twitter and other social
media. Recently concerns over two eligibility rulings for police and crime commissioners
with regard to previous convictions even when committed over forty years ago as a
juvenile and the continued holding of the office of magistrate when applying to become a
PCC became heated debates on Twitter. These debates lead to blogs identifying the
concern and the implications behind these apparently restrictive rulings and certainly in
one aspect, that of being a magistrate, it produced a change of ruling.
This got me t hinking about the impact of social media on crime policy. My observations
suggest it is beginning to occupy a distinctive space in the already crowded arena of
criminal justice policy making. Is it now a place where you might choose to campaign or
debate in preference to traditional f orms of campaigning and communication of ideas to
get your message across more quickly, to a more diverse and increasingly global audience
and by so doing increase accessibility and democracy in relation to the development of
crime policy? It is an intriguing possibility and one which if true may have implications for
all those researchers and academics who seek t o get their ideas heard by as wide an
audience as possible.
It has become increasingly evident in recent criminal justice policy exchanges that
government appears often driven by policy-based evidence rather than evidence-based
policy. Creating ever more politically driven policies and trying to find the policy which
might fit. Is the social media something that a policymaker or policy influencer concerned
with evidence-based policy can afford to ignore? I do not take the view that research
should have a primary position in the lexicon of influences on policy making. However the
findings and insights which research provides should certainly be a significant contributor
to what I would prefer to term evidence-informed policy and practice. The views of all
stakeholders including service users themselves should be taken account in developing
policy. Certainly to counteract the overweening influence of the written media in
developing peoples thinking about crime policy we need to ensure that all voices are
heard more frequently and more equitably. This raises the issue of how far social media
British Journal of Community Justice
©2012 Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield
ISSN 1475-0279
Vol. 10(2): 1-4

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