Use of online forums and blogs. Use of posters to inform public of online

forums and blogs.

Motivational- To restore the public’s confidence in the police force and to increase police credibility.

Blogs and online forums will be used to allow the public to report experiences with the police department in an effort to increase the public’s trust in the police officers and their force by the display of positive experiences. Any negative reports will be addressed and actions will be taken to please the individual, as well as raise public opinion/trust in the police force. We will encourage the entire public, not just people who had recent encounters with the police, to view these on a regular basis by placing posters advertising these all through the towns.

Cost of posters. The online forum and blog will be managed

by one person at each police department. Besides the cost of the staff time by the

one person managing the blog, there should be no monetary costs associated with the blog.

While there is only one person managing it, everyone in the police department will have to take time to address problems brought up in the blog.

Evaluation will be based upon the number of negative and positive experiences posted. Hopefully over time the number of negative experiences will decrease or completely disappear, and the number of positive experiences will increase greatly.

The public will only be viewing postings from other members of the public so there will be no issue with source credibility.

In viewing the positive experiences reported by individuals in the public, the blog and online forum will work to reshape the negative images and ideas that some individuals associate with the police force.

 Everyone will be asked to report their experience on the blog. If they don’t have access to internet, they will be offered a piece of paper in which they can handwrite how they felt about the experience. Police officers will be required to post their description, whether negative or positive.

While we can’t force people to participate in the online blog, we will strongly encourage people to use it and hopefully through time, everyone will learn that it is a very effective way of increasing the police force conduct.