This week’s news out of the U.K. is disturbing on a number of different levels, but this op ed from the Guardian says it best:

We hope that Detective Constable Richard Horton won’t lose his job, although he has been through what may be one of the fastest disciplinary processes in police history and been given a written reprimand. He has already been doorstepped by photographers and his award-winning blog has disappeared – and a window that had opened on to the way in which policeman go about their work, bristling with insights into contemporary Britain, has been slammed shut.

In a rather Orwellian way, history is being rewritten – it is as if it had never existed. Horton won the Orwell Prize for blogging because in an increasingly competitive field he offered such a distinct voice. And because it took you to the heart of policing in a gripping way: it was old-fashioned reporting but in the new time frame of an unfolding story. In particular it reeked of somewhere local, regional, a particular part of Britain as well as the particular place of being a policeman.

The cop blogger’s value

A number of police officers blog. Some write about their jobs. Others write about their personal lives. Many include their opinions of social and political trends. And, while a few — mainly for official purposes — blog under their own names, most remain anonymous.

It is possible, of course, that the unnamed bloggers are not really cops, but instead masquerade in a bid for attention. The details they offer, however, make this unlikely. More likely is that real officers are blogging anonymously for one of two reasons: their department has a policy against blogging, or in the absence of official policy, they believe they’ll be disciplined for their activities.

Administrators’ views are not without merit. A “loose cannon” officer blogging in a negative tone about his community and/or its residents opens the department to libel lawsuits. By and large, though, anonymous officer bloggers write fairly and honestly, providing their perspective on a variety of calls, agency dynamics, and other facts of law enforcement life. Their insights are valuable to both agency and community.

They may also be valuable to the officers themselves. Writing has long been established as a way to relieve stress—to help humans process thoughts and images. Journaling works for many people, but some of us need an audience, need to feel understood.

A necessary voice

Thus administrators would do well to encourage blogging, anonymous or not. It’s okay to place restrictions if officers are talking about their work rather than themselves; honest assessments of calls can, at best, lead to embarrassed citizens, even if the officer never names them. Guidance is prudent.

But if officers are blogging fairly and honestly, they should not be punished for their voices. This side of the pond, the law enforcement blogging community lost strong voices in the late “Texas Music” and “Negative, Ghostrider” blogs, both of which were shut down (and their archives deleted) after their writers were found out.

So by all means, guide blogging officers. Read their blogs, talk to them about what they’re writing. But don’t force them out. Many will find a way back in, for starters, under a different anonymous ID.

But more importantly, the community needs their honest voices. Police have long criticized the media for “getting it wrong” when it comes to police work. Cop bloggers are a chance to get it right. Why screw that up?

Image: thelastminute via Flickr

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Tags: Blog, Constable, On the Web, Orwell Prize, Police, Police officer, The Guardian, Weblogs

This entry was posted on June 18, 2009 at 8:44 am and is filed under Blogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.