Crimestoppers is a program that is designed to utilize citizens in the criminal justice process. The role of the citizen is to contribute to the capture of felony offenders who have escaped the law. Citizens can help the police solve a crime in various ways. When the police do not have any clues as to who committed the act, information that citizens provide can be the key to solving the crime. Citizens can also help officers recapture those individuals who fled after becoming known to the police. The key premise of the Crimestoppers programs is that in exchange for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of an offender, the person that volunteered the information receives a cash reward (Dempsey and Forst 2005, 215).
According to the Crimestoppers USA website, there are three impediments to officers obtaining information on offenders, the nature of the crime, and witnesses to the crime: (1) the fear that if a citizen comes forward with information about a crime or criminal, there will be some form of retaliation or reprisal; (2) a general sense of apathy or lack of concern on the part of the citizens; and (3) an aversion or reluctance, of the community, to get involved in the issue of crime (Crimestoppers USA 2005). Crimestoppers programs around the world have taken several steps to overcome these problems. One is to ensure that tips given to the program are anonymous. To accomplish this goal, Crimestoppers programs provide telephone hotlines that anyone can call and leave a tip on without giving his or her name. Providing cash rewards to individuals for information is another method of increasing public participation in criminal justice (Crimestoppers USA 2005). The premise behind providing cash rewards is that people are more likely to become involved with the criminal justice system if they are getting something in return. (This, of course, would require forgoing anonymity.)
The stated mission of Crimestoppers is ”to develop Crimestoppers as an effective crime-solving organization throughout the world, with the primary objective of this tri-partite organization of the community, media and law enforcement being ‘Working Together to Solve Crime”’ (M. Cooper, personal communication, October 10, 2005). There are three elements of every Crimestoppers program that help to ensure the mission of this agency is accomplished: the community, the media, and law enforcement personnel. The role of the community in Crimestoppers programs is the involvement of citizens who ”are responsible for forming a Crimestop-pers non-profit corporation, whose directors establish policy, determine amount and method of reward payments, work closely with the police and the media and generally oversee the program” (Crimes-toppers USA 2005). Without the community, Crimestopper programs cannot be effective because the members of the community are responsible for raising money and volunteering their time. The role of the media in the continued success of Crimestoppers programs is to provide information about the goals, objectives, methodology, and phone numbers to the public (Crimestoppers USA 2005). The media also contribute by relaying to the public which offenders are under investigation through newspapers and television programs. The job of law enforcement personnel is the investigation of tips and the arrest of suspects.
Currently, about 1,200 Crimestopper programs are in existence in twenty countries including the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom (Worldwide importance of Crimestoppers 2005). Although there are many different Crimes-toppers programs around the world, Crim-estoppers International, Inc., is the central agency that encompasses all programs. The main goal of Crimestoppers International, Inc., is the creation of programs around the world, and they provide training, support, publications, and useful information to established programs as well as to those communities that are interested in starting a Crimestoppers program of their own (What is Crimestoppers International?).
Tips from citizens have led to the capture of many fugitives. As of October 2005, about 1,142,717 cases have been solved internationally, and citizens have helped in the arrest of 611,807 felons (Worldwide importance of Crimestoppers 2005). In terms of property and drugs, Crimestoppers programs have succeeded in the recovery of an estimated $1,543,997,725 in property and $5,640,370,838 in drugs seizures (Worldwide importance of Crimestoppers 2005). The total amount of money received from drugs and property recovery was $7,184,368,563. Crimestoppers program have paid an estimated $68,556,831 in reward money to those individuals who gave information that helped lead police to the arrest and capture of felons (Worldwide importance of Crimestoppers 2005). The statistics reported on Crimestoppers programs ”show an average conviction rate of 95% and tips to Crimestoppers save law enforcement agencies thousands of dollars in investigation time” (Worldwide importance of Crimestoppers 2005). This indicates that once citizens become involved with helping the police solve crime through reporting tips, the rate of solving that crime increases. This means that police officers must indeed rely on the help of the community to solve some crimes.
Crimestoppers programs are very effective, and there are many benefits of having Crimestoppers programs throughout the world. Some of these benefits include (1) making the community aware of the crime problems within their area, (2) helping citizens in the fight against crime, and (3) ensuring that the community, law enforcement officers, and the media work together to solve crime (The tri-partite concept 2005).
Although no recent study could be located on the effectiveness of Crimestopper programs today, some studies evaluated these programs in the past. According to Challinger (2004, 9), three studies, in addition to the current one that the author was conducting, evaluated Crimestoppers programs. The three evaluations were conducted by the United States in 1987, the United Kingdom in 2001, and Canada in 1989. These past studies found it hard to evaluate the true effectiveness of Crimes-topper programs because of the nature of the program itself. Because these programs are based on anonymity, there is no way to collect data on informants and how they obtained their information about the crime or the criminal suspect (Challinger 2004, 9). Most Crimestoppers programs only evaluate the number of cases that are solved by the police based on tips and the amount of property seized, and this is not a true measure of effectiveness because it is not known if the police would have solved the case eventually without the help of the informant (Chal-linger 2004, 9). The true effectiveness of Crimestopper programs might not ever be fully evaluated as long the program is based on anonymous tips.
