The popular and ever-growing community group called Casey Crime Page is in the limelight, as researchers from Monash University have called out for members to take part in a new study.
Sociologist lecturer Claire Moran, alongside senior lecturer in criminology Kathryn Benier, published a post on the Facebook page on 15 July, calling for willing users to share how they use the page to engage in topics of crime.
The two researchers said that the main focus of the interviewing process is to understand how people interact with the page, the topics discussed, and an overall understanding of how people get their information on crime.
Claire, who spoke on her extensive experience in digital sociology and social media, said that the sheer size of the group had been one of the factors that drew both their attention.
“There are over 90,000 people in it, and it’s growing,” she said.
“To my knowledge, it means that it’s the largest neighbourhood-based crime-focused page that we have in Victoria.”
She added that while there are other pages that are similar in nature, such as those specifically for stolen vehicles or booze buses, there was nothing in terms of “a focused crime page that the Casey Crime Page offers”.
“It’s a very unique sort of page, and it’s something that I’ve been following for a while.
“So it’s not only the membership and the growth of the page, but also the significant amount of engagement from users.”
Kathryn, with her background in criminology and work through neighbourhood interactions, said that she, too, had her eyes on the page.
She reflected that she had been working with the City of Casey for the last few years with the LGA’s safer community projects, and that for her, “it’s interesting to see this crowdsourcing of information”.
“For a lot of these people, that’s their sort of main source of info when it comes to crime in their community.
“So being able to follow that and follow the growth on it has been interesting for us,” she said.
Before reaching this stage of reaching out to members, both Claire and Kathryn had been working on the project for almost a year, and both are keen to finally put their work on the road, where the people’s voices become heard.
The project’s interests lie in several topics, with both saying that they were led to where the project is at now through other research.
However, according to Claire, “it really is an unexplored frontier”.
“Particularly with the context of Casey, there are very interesting things happening within the community that are contributing to this page.
“What we know from research so far suggests that these neighbourhood-based social media groups offer an opportunity for people to come together to share and support each other.
“The kind of benefits that that might have for residents, you know, this collective action that they can have in contributing to this page, and whether they perceive those benefits to be there through participation,” she said.
Kathryn said she is on the same page, with the ultimate goal of understanding how people are using the page and why they are using it to begin with.
Residing close to the municipality boundary of Casey, she said that most of the people she has spoken to are members of the page.
“It’s about understanding how these kinds of neighbourhood crime pages have become a kind of vehicle for information for local residents,” she said.
“There seems to be a strong outreach on the page, so it’s about understanding what it is about this page in particular, but also broadly how these pages can be used.”
For now, the focus is gathering information, first-hand accounts, data, analytics and more.
Looking back at the work they’ve both done in the last year, both are more than eager to reach the practical stage, where speaking to people is something that they are “very, very excited about”.
For more information on the project, visit forms.gle/gZEHQgwbB8Z8wzUJ8
