Social Media Platforms and the Salinas Police Department

The Salinas Police Department has one hundred and seventy two sworn police officer

positions who provide service to about one hundred and sixty thousand community members

throughout the City of Salinas. Close to eighty percent of the community members are Hispanic

or Latino and the average age in Salinas is thirty years old (Data, 2019). The Salinas Police

Department must be able to “…quickly and easily communicate with the public both as an

agency and as law enforcement leaders” to highlight positive interactions, decimate information

important to the community and reach a large group during emergencies (Patrick, 2016).

The Salinas Police Department completed a major overhaul of their police department’s

website in 2017 by creating a user-friendly page. The new website incorporates large, easy to

read links to direct users to their appropriate sections, has a photograph of the Chief of Police

with a quick message, and a Spanish link to change the website for community members who

choose to read Spanish. The easy to navigate website is a “…one-stop shop where [visitors]

could do all these different programs” to include several links to other community organizations

such as the Police Activities League (PAL), Amber Alert and Neighborhood Watch (Carlson,

2019). The website also has Facebook and Twitter links embedded into the homepage which

displays the most recent posts on each social media site. A visitor can click on the Twitter or

Facebook link and be redirected to the Salinas Police Department’s social media page.

The Salinas Police Department’s Facebook page is currently designed to share

information pertaining to arrests, community events and crisis information and is the largest

social media outlet for the department with twenty-two thousand followers. The department’s

Twitter account has thirteen thousand followers and Instagram has about two thousand followers.
The agency’s Facebook page had a history of only posting gang or gun related arrests because

the gang task force Commander was the only proactive member posting information.

Community events were rarely shared and there was very little/no response to follower’s

questions or comments. Community members could comment or ask questions and they

expected to receive feedback from their police department but this was not occurring with the

Salinas Police Department. The department did not have “…someone monitor[ing] both the

information posted and compliance with Facebook policies, which [would] involve a

commitment of both time and expense” (Patrick, 2016).

Salinas Police administrators identified this as a problem and wanted to share the

humbling, funny and important information other members of the department do with the Salinas

community. Police leaders recognized that the agency’s Facebook page mostly consisted of

firearm arrests and gang members being jailed and there was much more they wanted share with

the community. Early 2019, the Salinas Police Department created a Social Media Team where

specific officers were selected to post, update, share and respond to community members on all

social media platforms.

These officers had been assigned to patrol and the gang task force and were encouraged to take

photographs from in the field, write a short synopsis and post it to the department’s social media

platforms in order to “…control the release of information to the public without relying on

mainstream media” (Patrick, 2016). Members of this team would login as they chose and update

information, reply to comments or questions or “hide” certain comments that were against

Facebook policy or inappropriate.

 Since the incorporation of the Social Media Team, the three social media platforms

(Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) have been filled with a wider variety of arrest content,

community events shared with the public and responses to followers who post questions,

comments or give the department “kudos” for their hard work. Members of the team are able to

share the same stories on all three platforms in order to reach users who may choose to use one

social media over another.

The Social Media Team will continue to engage the followers through replies to their comments

or questions which can increase activity on all three sites, increase shared content and increase

followers. The more positive stories of arrests, community outreach and relationship building

events shared can help build on the department’s legitimacy and community trust. It takes one

post, one comment and continued dedication to the department’s social media sites but the

investment can have a city wide and department wide affect when a crisis or negative event

occurs.
 References

Carlson, D. (2019). The Tactics of Online Communication. Communication for Law Enforcement
Leaders. University of San Diego.

Data USA. Accessed on 22 April 2019. Retrieved from: https://datausa.io/profile/geo/salinas-ca/

#demographics

Patrick, W. (2019). Online Communication: The New Face of Public Safety. Communication for
Law Enforcement Leaders; Module 6. University of San Diego.