The Ghana Police Service on Thursday launched a new website and social media handles to help fight crime in the country.

The website; www.police.gov.gh and official social media handles; facebook, twitter and instagram are for constant engagement with the public and the police, which is an essential element of modern policing.

Mr David Asante-Apeatu, the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), at the launch in Accra, said the emergence of internet and mobile telephony was a mixed blessing to the police as a law enforcement body.

He said in spite of the negatives exemplified in internet related frauds, there was a huge potential for the police to make themselves visible and accessible on the virtual space to leverage support, share information and gather intelligence.

The IGP said this would enable the police to have constructive online engagement with Ghanaians both home and abroad, as well as other nationalities who might have to engage the Service in one way or the other.

He said with an estimated 10 million internet users in Ghana, which constituted about 35 per cent of the country’s population; with four million facebook subscribers, and many more on social media, the Police Service recognised the need to tap into such potential as a significant medium of reaching out to the public.

Mr Asante-Apeatu said the Police would use the website to educate and update the public, solicit for information or alert people to situations such as missing and wanted persons, which are cardinal in contemporary policing.

He cautioned people who hide behind the anonymity of social media to commit crimes to desist from such acts before the law catches up with them.

The IGP commended the media and the public for the prompt and wide publicity, which helped in the manhunt of the perpetrators of the unfortunate incident that happened at Kwabenya Police Station on January 21, 2018.

“The continuous exhibition of such loyalty and patriotism is the way to go in our collective resolve to fight crime in the country,” he said.

The IGP expressed gratitude to all implementing partners in their projects, especially E-Solutions Ghana and Blogging Ghana for their support in the creation of the website and the social media handles.

Inspector Bako Mohammed, giving more details on the website, said it had all information about the activities of the Police at all levels including the regions and that people could access it when the need be.

“It is multilingual so foreigners can access information about the country upon arrival,” he said.

Insp. Mohammed said there was an IGP portal where the public could send direct information to the IGP and get responses, including live chat with Police personnel on cases.

He said to ensure the website was protected from any security threat they had put in place the appropriate measures to check any fraudulent act.

He said the social media handles were also verified to ensure that people did not create new accounts in the name of the Ghana Police Service.