Summary

Crimestoppers is an organisation which encourages those people who know about crimes and criminals to pass the information to the police anonymously. These are people who are close to the criminals and may be criminals but are at risk if they talk to the police. Until recently, the information was passed by telephone to specially trained operators, but now and increasingly new communications technologies are being used. The organisation is designed to protect those who call so that their names and details can never be discovered by the criminals, and may require such protection in legislation. The organisation must also have a high standard of integrity and be seen to be absolutely safe, so that those who might call have complete confidence in it. Some Crimestoppers organisations offer rewards, also given to the callers who provide valuable information anonymously.

Purpose

This document describes the concept and operation of Crimestoppers. There are many ways in which a Crimestoppers organisation could be established, each dependent on the law and culture of the particular nation. But this document sets out the UK model with the purpose of explaining the type of organisation, process, and regulations required to make the concept successful.

Origins

Crimestoppers has its origins in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. In 1976, as a result of a vicious armed robbery at a petrol station an employee was shot dead. The detective investigating the murder believed this crime had been committed by someone living in the local community. The officer also thought that someone in the same community knew the killer but, for whatever reason, were unwilling to come forward and talk with police face to face. He set up a telephone ‘hot line’ where anyone with information as to who committed the murder could ring and speak anonymously with the detective. If their information led to an arrest, the caller could receive a reward - with the caller remaining anonymous at all times.

Local businesses were approached for funding to support publicity and payment of a reward. Along with the media giving the scheme the publicity it needed, within a short time, a caller had phoned the ‘hot-line’ giving information which led directly to the arrest and subsequent charging of the suspects. Coincidentally, the police were also receiving anonymous information about other criminal activity occurring within their local community. The concept developed and Crimestoppers was born.

In the UK Crimestoppers developed along a separate path. In 1985, Michael Ashcroft, a wealthy businessman and now Lord Ashcroft, was horrified by the brutal murder of Police Constable Keith Blakelock during a riot in London. The police said that many people knew those responsible but were frightened of coming forward. Michael Ashcroft offered the Commissioner money for a reward for anybody providing information that would lead to an arrest. The reward was not required but the idea developed and in 1987 he founded Crimestoppers as a charity, initially starting as a number of separate programmes around the UK and eventually becoming one organisation.

Organisation

Crimestoppers is a charitable company limited by guarantee. It has 2 subordinate companies, Crimestoppers Enterprises Limited which runs any commercial business (mainly for VAT purposes) and 555 111 Ltd, the company that runs the 24/7 Bureau where the calls are answered. This is to ensure that Bureau finances are separate and visible. 555 111 Ltd pays fees for management to Crimestoppers.

It is governed by a Board of 12 Trustees, Chaired by Lord Ashcroft. They are responsible for the overall governance and strategic direction of the charity.

The Board of Trustees has 2 subordinate committees, the Audit Committee which oversees the finances and the Executive Advisory Board chaired by one of the trustees, with 2 others, the Chief Executive and 12 volunteers selected from around the UK.

Management. The Central Office is based in Morden, consisting of 25 full time paid staff. An organisational diagram is attached. The Central Office runs Crimestoppers as a charitable business, raising funds, managing advertising and publicity, dealing with partners and managing the charity as a whole.

Field Staff. There are 3 “Regional Managers”, tied to 3 government regions, responsible for recruiting, training and guiding the volunteers. The target is to have 9, one for each government region, but funding at present is insufficient.

Volunteers. There are 35 “Boards” covering the whole of the UK. These are local charity committees made up of about 10 – 20 volunteers each. They raise money and spend it on local campaigns to make the phone ring, working closely with the police and other organisations and local government to identify priorities. At present, the 35 Boards do not match police force boundaries (there are 53 police forces in the UK and Channel Islands) but we are creating new Boards so that there will be one for each police force or county; this is the relationship and structure we have found to work best. However, the impending restructuring of police forces in England and Wales may cause us to review our structure once again. The volunteers are typically business people, media and retired police officers. Officers from the intelligence bureau of the local police force, as well as fire officers, attend meetings to provide reports, but they are not part of the decision making process.

Crimestoppers Police Coordinators. Each police force should have a police officer whose duty it is to undertake liaison with Crimestoppers, in particular providing feedback on success. A committee of the Association of Chief Police Officers produces a manual that guides the police in how to manage Crimestoppers information and other processes; these police officers are responsible for implementing these rules.

Police Liaison

The Association of Chief Police Officers - Crimestoppers Working Group is the main mechanism for governing the relationship between the charity and the police.

The Crimestoppers Director of Operations runs a Police Coordinators working group that deals with day to day processes.

Politics

Crimestoppers is apolitical. As a policy we do not comment publicly on government policy, initiatives, or the criminal justice system, nor do we take a position on any of these. However, we can take a position and comment on activity and performance of other organisations where we interact in order to achieve our objectives. With the police we act in private as a critical friend in the areas relevant to us only.

Integrity

Crimestoppers’ success depends of being seen by the public, communities, partners and all donors to be independent. This means that all publicity material, commentary and presentation shows us to be separate and that nobody can make us reveal the identity of a caller.

Crimestoppers ‘actionable’ intelligence is information obtained from the Crimestoppers source which is worthy of further development. No attempts are made to identify the source. Telephone conversations are not tape-recorded (or otherwise digitally retained) nor are telephone calls traced to point of origin. Nevertheless, the sources are interrogated to find avenues to substantiate the information. In appropriate circumstances, Crimestoppers sources, when willing, are introduced into the police informant system.

Protection to the caller is offered by the organisations status as a charity. As a charity, it is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. Also, in the UK it has specific exclusion in law , and by being specifically excluded from the provisions of RIPA 2000 which is the law governing the management of police informers. In court, when judges are asked by the defence for intelligence evidence to be disclosed, they have so far found in our favour and prohibited even the knowledge that information came from Crimestoppers being revealed in court.

By not being part of the government or the police, Crimestoppers is the voice of the people in the fight against crime; people trust us because we are representatives of the people, are not political and are and seen to be independent.

The Operation

Though this document concentrates on the anonymous phone line, we do other work. Much effort goes into education programmes where we produce packages that are part of the national curriculum, helping children to avoid crime. Some campaigning has twin messages; use the number and help the police to reduce crime in your community and at the same time take responsibility as a citizen and do something about crime.

But the main effort is to make the phone ring. With partners we identify priorities and produce campaigns to make the phone ring. Good publicity produces good results. This year in Scotland an extremely successful campaign increased the number of calls made to Crimestoppers by 400% and resulted in over 200 arrests of class A drug dealers in a 4 month period.

Crimestoppers owns and runs a 24/7 call centre, where the calls are answered by specially trained operators. Their task is to talk to callers who might be frightened, getting the right information from them. Although some callers offer the information, the principles are that we do not ask for people’s names or any other personal details. We do not collect their telephone numbers, or record the conversation. Once the call has finished, the operator writes out the information in such a way that the police cannot guess who made the call. The information is then e-mailed to the intelligence bureau of the relevant police force, sometimes going to more than one location – Customs and Illegal Immigration for example.

A high proportion of calls are not relevant to Crimestoppers. For example people want to report crime or ask for advice. The operators have to deal with this sympathetically.

To ensure that the fact that a call has been made to Crimestoppers does not appear on telephone bills, we have arrangements with the telephone companies to delete this information from bills. Also, the 0800 555 111 number is free to the caller.

We also have an e-mail form on our website which people can complete and be sure that we cannot work out who it came from. Soon, we will launch one-to-one secure chat lines over the internet (mainly to hear from young people) and possibly text messaging.

Crimestoppers also operates a web site of “Most Wanted” pictures of people wanted by the police for questioning in connection with a crime. It received 5.5 million hits in its first week of operation and can best be explained by looking at it: www.mostwanted-uk.org. 3 months after it was launched it is getting 40,000 hits a day and about one successful result each week.

Rewards

In the UK, Crimestoppers offers rewards for information that leads to an arrest and charge. There are two levels of reward. The lower level is managed by the volunteer Boards and is only up to £1000 with strict rules as to the amount paid for the type of information and crime. Only 2% of people who call ask for a reward. There is a higher level of reward offered for specific crimes. This is managed by Central Office and is usually up to £10,000. At any time there are only about 10 of these on offer. We have an arrangement with our bank that ensures rewards are paid anonymously through a carefully managed system of codenames. Recently, and unusually, we offered £50,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for the murder of a particular police officer.

Results

The results from the Crimestoppers operation makes a significant contribution to police performance. The police report back to us the results from information we have passed to them based on the numbers of arrests and charges for each type of crime compared to the numbers of “actionable intelligence packages”. They attribute the success to Crimestoppers where the information is the key factor in concluding the investigation.

The attached table sets out our contribution to police success but the highlight figure is that every week in the UK one person is arrested and charged with the crime of murder as result of Crimestoppers.

Although we produce intelligence on a wide variety of crimes, the ethos of the organisation is to deal with violent crime against people, so we concentrate on murder, sexual crimes, crimes against children, and drugs.

Publicity

Crimestoppers encourages people to call with information by running publicity campaigns, usually on a particular theme. This pack includes some examples of the poster campaigns but we also use TV, radio and newspapers.

Funding

In the 15 month Financial Year up to April 2005 our income was £5M. 33% of this was in the form of a Home Office grant that covers 80% of our core costs. The remainder comes mainly from the corporate sector who make donations, buy licences to use our brand internally and contribute to our fundraising events. Recently, for example, we have launched an Associate Membership scheme whereby 20 major corporations are each going to give us £100,000 over three years.

International

Crime Stoppers International (CSI) is an umbrella body that is heavily US centric and until recently has been inward looking. But with interest and involvement by Europeans the organisation is improving and may prove much more effective. They run a Training Conference each year where best practice is exchanged.

In Europe at present there are two other Crimestoppers organisation, in Holland and in Hungary. Information can be found on each on www.crimestopperseurope.com .

We have set up our own informal European Working Group consisting of the UK and Holland (presently the Hungarians cannot afford to attend) with a view to helping other nations to develop their own Crimestoppers organisations if they wish to. In conjunction with the UN and following the UK’s EU Presidency we are in the early stages of developing Crimestoppers in the British expatriate community in Spain (where many British criminals are based, and this is in conjunction with the Spanish government), and assisting development in Gibraltar, Turkey and the Balkan states.

Communication

We have a public website www.crimestoppers-uk.org and have just launched an information site for other nations in Europe: www.crimestopperseurope.com. The UK’s Most Wanted web site is also on www.mostwanted-uk.org.