GUELPH POLITICAST #380 - Cops and Stoppers

For decades, Crime Stoppers has offered itself as a kind of investigative middleman: If you didn’t want to go to the police yourself for whatever reason, you could leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers and they would pass it along. Our local Crime Stoppers is admittedly pretty successful at what they do, and they have the awards and statistics to prove it, but what's their role 35 years from where they started?

When Crime Stoppers began in the 1970s it was radical in a number of ways. They would offer awards for information about crimes in the area, and they could also offer anonymity for the people leaving the tips if the tipster was worried about becoming a target for retaliation by sharing information. Another unique feature of the program was those TV recreations, which brought the crime to life to jog the memories of potential witnesses.

Here in Guelph and Wellington County, our Crime Stoppers branch was incorporated in 1988 and in the last 35 years it has collected over 23,000 tips which has led to 1,600 arrests for over 4,500 charges. In recent years, Crime Stoppers has extended themselves to make people more knowledgeable about crimes before they happen, like fraud and human trafficking, and like all the work Crime Stoppers does, it's paid for through their own fundraising efforts, not through the police budget.

This week, we're joined by one of two staff members at Crime Stoppers Guelph Wellington, program co-ordinator Sarah Bowers-Peter. She will tell us about how she got involved with Crime Stoppers, and how the organization has changed over the years. She will also talk about how Crime Stoppers works with groups beyond the police, and how they’ve been affected by the changing media landscape. Also, she will discuss Crime Stoppers expansion into other types of programming.

So let's take a bit out of crime (sorry, wrong program) on this week's Guelph Politicast!

You can learn more about Crime Stoppers at their website, and that’s where you can find the details about the Crime of the Week, and details about various Crime Stoppers programs like Crime Stoppers 101 and Human Trafficking. To make an anonymous tip to Crime Stoppers call  1-800-222-TIPS (8477), or email at info [at] csgw.tips.

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Photo courtesy of Crime Stoppers Guelph Wellington.