Academic

Wells on iPolicing

By Lawrence Solum

Philip A. Wells (New York University School of Law) has posted iPolicing on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

In this post-broken windows crime-fighting landscape, new crime-fighting techniques must not only make cities safer, but also more trusting of their police departments. This paper proposes an estimated 106 million solutions to these needs, found in pockets across America: the cellular telephone.

These popular devices - equipped with audio, visual, and global positioning system (?GPS?) recording potential - pose an enormous technological opportunity for urban policing. Since these camera phones routinely capture major events that impact public safety - ranging from natural disasters to petty crime and police brutality - police should harness citizen multimedia through a voluntary ?iPolicing? upload system, where ordinary citizens can e-mail police departments with emergent data. This sort of 9-1-1 e-mail system, modeled after the Cable News Network (?CNN?) ?iReport? program, would help police react quickly and allocate existing policing resources more efficiently.

More importantly, however, a public iPolicing system would allow citizens to digitally participate in the policing process. As iPolice, citizens can take an active stake in the safety of their neighborhoods, foster interaction and communication between police and the constituents they serve, and begin mending the broken legitimacy of police departments. In a sense, iPolicing democratizes the policing process, making everyone a digital detective in their community, encouraging more citizens to participate in the law enforcement process. In doing so, iPolicing amplifies the finite resources of law enforcement and avoids the undesirable trade-off between security and legitimacy in post-broken windows cities across America.

A very intriguing student piece.

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on April 28, 2009 (boomark / email).