Can Social Media Tools Help the University District a Safer Place?

Posted by rubir on
Sunday, November 23rd, 2008 at 12:05 pm

Lately, there have been more crime incidents against UW students. The last couple of crimes have been committed during the day, both robberies. In order to fight back and make the UW District a safer place, the community needs to be involved. Neighbors, students, police, business owners and the UW have to work together. How can social media tools help to build a safety place, not only for students, but for everyone?

Maybe the creation of neighborhood platform that includes an e-mail list to the Mayor and City Council Members of the City of Seattle, the Governor, the Seattle Chief of Police and the Legislators, for the community to demand safety. Maybe the creation of a community dialog through Twitter.

Any other ideas?

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4 Comments, Comment or Ping

Pei-chieh

Yes, the increasing of crimes in U-district is scary.
A platform is needed. I would like to see a map with the locations of crimes and the follow-up on the platform.

Nov 23rd, 2008
gzliuzw

Well, usually speaking, UW students will be notified by email as soon as there is a criminal incident happened in U District area. Even though you have best social tools at hand, there is little you can do to prevent the crime. As I see, social tools can be useful in educating people some safty imformation. Also, encouraging victims to talk through social platforms might help people increase their senses of security.

Nov 25th, 2008
Ashley

Seconding the maps idea — with the option for users to comment on incidents they’d seen at the location, or to add their own reports on other locations. UW campus police could then use the map to target risky zones on campus and add lighting, cameras, etc.

Nov 25th, 2008
yenching

This idea is really interesting. I would love to see the social media platform in our community. Everyone in our community should be responsible for the community safety and maybe social media can help us congregate together and provide instant information or alerts to inform the people who are in a dangerous area. This social media platform is also an environment for the residents to provide their opinions and suggestions on enhancing the safety in the community.

Nov 26th, 2008