JACKSON TOWNSHIP, Ohio — Social media can be a powerful tool, and law enforcement is fully aware of its powers.

Many, like Jackson Township, post on their Facebook page almost daily, getting help from the community in solving a wide range of crimes ranging from petty thefts to burglaries to assaults.

While many local law enforcement agencies and police departments use social media to send alerts and raise awareness, Jackson Township uses its Facebook page almost daily.

The department’s Facebook page, launched in 2016, has 27,000 followers and is a hub for solving crimes in the municipality and Stark County.

JTPD is asking for the public’s help in identifying individuals involved in open investigations. It generates dozens of comments and shares on the web every day. Some of these images of people may seem unassuming, but Police Chief Mark Brink said there is more to an image than meets the eye.

“You can’t guess from the picture why we want this person,” Brink said. “They might witness something that happened and we know they were there at some point. I know when you first watch it it’s like oh yeah, they’re flying. It’s our advantage that you don’t really know why we’re looking for them.

Other local agencies, like Westlake police, have also stepped up to the plate, using social media to help solve cases.

“These images circulate very quickly and are seen by a very wide range of people,” said Cpt. Gerald Vogel of the Westlake Police Department. “We have been very successful in identifying criminals this way. »

Brink and Vogel said their department’s positions even help other law enforcement agencies beyond their jurisdictions in Stark and Cuyahoga counties.

“If we put someone there, not only people in the community, but also other police officers from other jurisdictions and those kinds of things will look at it,” Brink said.

Brink estimates that about 75 percent of those affected are identified, saving departments thousands of dollars in time and resources.

“It could take weeks of old-fashioned police work to circulate someone’s photo in ways that we just don’t have with technology,” Vogel said.

“We can look at old prison photos in any way, but those are difficult,” Brink said. “You just have a person walking past a camera with nothing else around to identify them. This uses a lot of our resources.

Above all, the department’s two pages would be nothing without the support of the community.

“We, or the community working alone, are not going to get as much done as if we were working collaboratively with the public,” Vogel said.