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Tracking crime on Twitter

Summary

28 August 2012

Growing numbers of residents of the American city of Los Angeles are taking an active interest in tracking crime. More and more of them are now tuning in to private radio conversations between police officers and spreading what they hear throughout the city.

Reporter:

Janet Barrie

Report

Scanning the airwaves for police radio conversations is something professional crime reporters have done for decades. But now a whole new group of people are embracing this old-school technique. 

In Los Angeles a growing band of residents has invested in scanners to monitor police conversations and spread what they learn across the city on the social networking site Twitter. Between them they now have over thirty thousand Twitter followers. 

Alex Thompson decided to buy a scanner when she realised how little she actually knew about crime in her area. She says she now never switches it off, even listening late at night in bed.

It's been an absolute revelation, she says, to find out what's really happening in her area, the crimes her fellow residents would normally never hear about.

Alex Thompson:

"When I first got the scanner for listening I was in shock – the way I described it I hid under my desk sucking my thumb for two weeks in disbelief of what I heard. But the reality is this is what is going on in my neighbourhood."