Feb 25, 2008 5:19 pm US/Pacific
Bay Area Officials Unveil Anonymous Crime Tip Line
SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) ―
Bay Area police chiefs and sheriffs joined government officials and representatives of the Bay Area Council and Association of Bay Area Governments in San Francisco Monday to announce the launch of a new tip line that aims to help fight crime.
Bay Area Crime Stoppers is a newly established anonymous tip line that pays rewards of $500 to $2,000 for information that leads to the arrest and indictment of persons who have committed felonies, according to Crime Stoppers spokesman George Broder.
While Crime Stoppers has already been established in Marin and Silicon Valley, Bay Area Crime Stoppers will serve nine Bay Area counties with one phone number, (800) 222-TIPS. Crime Stoppers of Marin and Silicon Valley Crime Stoppers will also continue to operate independently.
According to Broder, the new service was the result of an annual poll conducted by the Bay Area Council, a business-sponsored public policy advocacy organization. The poll, a survey of 600 Bay Area residents, indicated that crime had risen to the third worse problem facing the region.
Crime Stoppers calls are answered at a Toronto-based call center by police-trained operators who are available to speak in dozens of languages.
Broder said that one of the primary purposes of Crime Stoppers is to build trust and safety among the callers. Callers are not asked to identify themselves and no recording equipment or phone tracing is used, according to the Bay Area Council.
"If you ask any police department, their biggest challenge in pursuing crime is a lack of information," President of the Bay Area Council Jim Wunderman said in a prepared statement. "Informants for felony crimes do not come forward either fearing retribution or due to apathy. This program, through anonymity and financial rewards, has a rack record of effectively solving the information problem."
Crime Stoppers is an international organization and Crime Stoppers USA programs have yielded an average conviction rate of about 95 percent on cases that use information from Crime Stoppers, according to the Bay Area Council.
About three dozen law enforcement agencies representing nine Bay Area counties have become involved in Bay Area Crime Stoppers and Broder said information about the service will be sent out this week to reach all 101 cities in the Bay Area.
According to Broder, the obligation of law enforcement agencies is to provide a liaison to feed the tip information to.
Broder said Bay Area Crime Stoppers is expected to cost as much as $700,000 a year. Most of the funding will come from the business and corporate communities.
The Bay Area Crime Stoppers telephone line is currently active at (800) 222-TIPS.
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