Crimestoppers UK (Crimestoppers Trust) is an independent charity that gives people the power to speak up and stop crime, 100% anonymously.

Crimestoppers is available 24/7, 365 days a year, by phone and online. Crimestoppers also shares advice on how to protect people from crime and keep communities safe.

Crimestoppers receives over half a million contacts from the public, resulting in over 150,000 crime reports being disseminated to local police forces or national agencies such as the National Crime Agency and Border Force amongst others.

Since Crimestoppers began in 1988, it has received over 2.2 million actionable calls, resulting in more than 151,000 arrests and charges, over £139 million worth of stolen goods have been recovered and over £367 million worth of illegal drugs have been seized.[1][2]

Anonymity

Anonymity means that someone is unidentifiable, untraceable, and unreachable..

Anonymity is at the core of Crimestoppers’ operation. Even details such as gender, location or relationship to the person breaking the law are never recorded or passed to the police so they can keep the guarantee of 100% anonymity. And this guarantee has never been broken. This means: no police. No courts.  No witness statements.

Computer IP addresses are never traced, and for telephone calls, there is no caller line display and no 1471 facility.

Their trained Contact Centre staff ensure information passed on does not reveal any personal details.  No police staff are employed by the charity.

To offer to take information in confidence often means that your personal details will be recorded. Crimestoppers promises anonymity, not confidentiality.

Case study: gun under the pillow

A young woman contacts Crimestoppers to say her boyfriend is hiding a gun under his pillow in the bedroom. She’s frightened of his reaction and behaviour since getting involved in criminality. Instead of passing on information to the police saying that the gun is under his pillow, Crimestoppers would indicate that the gun is somewhere in the property.

Whilst the police will receive information that a dangerous weapon is in the property, Crimestoppers ensures that they won’t know it was the gunman’s girlfriend.

History

Origins in USA and Norfolk

The first-ever Crimestoppers in the world was originated in Albuquerque, USA in 1976 when a young man was shot dead during a robbery at a filling station, and having made little headway in finding the perpetrator, police decided to set up an anonymous phone line for witnesses to come forward with information. Within 72 hours, arrests were made, but what amazed the New Mexico police was the number of people giving information on other, unrelated crimes. So the Crimestoppers concept was born.[3]

Six years later Detective Inspector Mike Cole from Norfolk Constabulary, learnt about the scheme on a police visit to Peoria, in Illinois. He was impressed with how information was given anonymously, and also how callers giving information that led to an arrest put themselves in line for a reward payment from money donated by local businesses.

On his return to Great Yarmouth, Mike submitted a report to his chief superintendent and the chief constable, who gave their approval for a Norfolk scheme. However, it was by chance that Jim Carter, the manager of the local Woolworths, subsequently received a letter from Chief Superintendent Peter Howse asking for support. When Jim followed up on this letter and learnt about the Crimestoppers scheme, he saw it as a good opportunity to get the community involved in crime-fighting.[4]

Other areas around the UK also learned of Crimestoppers and took it up around this time although there was not a national, co-ordinated approach.

Crimestoppers UK History

During the 1985 London riots, PC Keith Blakelock was murdered at the Broadwater Farm Estate in London and the police appealed for information, stating that people knew who had been responsible but were frightened of coming forward.

This led to the founding of the Community Action Trust (CAT) by Michael Ashcroft (now Lord Ashcroft) and his business colleagues in 1988. This was a simple phone line where people called and CAT took information about crime, stripped it of any information that could identify the person making the call, and passed it to the police.

The CAT was renamed Crimestoppers Trust in 1995; by then it had expanded to cover the whole of the UK as the other Crimestoppers schemes foundered or were encompassed within the charity. Now, most information is submitted online to the national Contact Centre.

Initially, the administrative organisation was based on ITV regions, but the best model proved to be local county-based committees working in partnership with single police forces. The roll-out of this structure continues; there are now 44 volunteer committees across the UK.

Campaigns

Crimestoppers runs a large number of campaigns each year educating the public about different crime types and appealing for information. Examples of campaigns include:

'Scratch and Sniff' Cannabis Cultivation Campaign

Starting in 2013, the charity and police forces across the country distributed "scratch and sniff" cards to the public to educate and inform them about the signs to spot and the specific smell of cannabis when it is growing. The campaign was designed to target cultivation by criminal gangs so hot spot areas, as informed by police intelligence, were targeted by 17 police forces throughout England and Wales. Due to the campaign, information passed to Crimestoppers on cannabis cultivation contributed to new cannabis farms being discovered and a number of arrests.[5]

Game of Fraud

Crime figures show a substantial rise in reported fraud, boosted by a rise in identity theft and online scams costing the UK economy £63 million per year.[6] To help tackle these crimes, the charity has created a Game of Fraud website, featuring a survey with information on a variety of frauds, including romance fraud, courier fraud and online shopping fraud. Through a series of short questions, the quiz identifies which fraud types members of the public may be most vulnerable to and gives a detailed description of how they may be targeted.[7]

Human Trafficking

Crimestoppers asks the public to help prevent human trafficking by passing on anonymously any information they have, no matter how small, about forced labour exploitation. Human trafficking is the second most profitable crime type in the world, second only to drugs, with an annual trade value of around $32 billion. Hundreds of men, women and children are identified as potential victims of labour trafficking in the UK each year, and the figure is rising.[8][9]

Catching UK criminals abroad

Crimestoppers works with partners including the National Crime Agency and the UK Border Agency to track down UK criminals that are believed to be on the run in Europe.

Operation Captura is Crimestoppers' campaign that aims to track down UK criminals on the run in Spain. Spain has always been a popular place for UK criminals to hide, but in 2004 European Arrest Warrants came into effect, making it easier to extradite criminals. Operation Captura works by publicising the names and faces of wanted criminals who are believed to be in Spain, so people there can identify them and provide information as to their whereabouts.[10]

In March 2010, Crimestoppers worked with the National Crime Agency, Meld Misdaad Anoniem and the Dutch Police to launch Operation Return. Operation Return aimed to track down six UK criminals that were believed to be on the run in the Netherlands. This list consisted of some of the UK's most dangerous criminals that were wanted for crimes that vary from drugs smuggling, the illegal sale of firearms, robbery, violence and rape. A second Operation Return appeal was made in Amsterdam in June 2011, a third in February 2014 and a fourth in March 2016.[11]

The Operation Zygos campaign targets fugitives hiding in Cyprus. The first arrest was made within 48 hours of the campaign launch when a man wanted for sexual offences against a child was located. Among those caught were also Wayne Smith and Julie Skelding, who were wanted for causing death by dangerous driving and perverting the course of justice.[12]

Fearless

In April 2010, Crimestoppers launched Fearless, a dedicated youth service for 11 to 16-year-olds. Fearless replaced ShadowCS, Crimestoppers' original youth brand. Fearless aims to educate and empower young people with information and advice about crimes that might affect them personally, their friends or their family. It includes an option for young people to pass on information about crime anonymously via an online form.[13]

Regional activities

Crimestoppers works at a grassroots level across the UK. Supported by a volunteer network, regional teams work alongside local police, businesses and other charities, launching campaigns and events to help make communities safer places to live.[14]

Rewards

Crimestoppers pays rewards for information that directly leads to an arrest. The amount paid can range between £50 and £1,000, depending on the severity of the crime and the significance of the information being communicated. They do not pay rewards for the recovery of stolen property. An individual's anonymity is never compromised by claiming a reward as, when an individual passes information on to Crimestoppers, they can request a special code. If that individual wants to check whether they are eligible for a reward, they are requested to call Crimestoppers again at a later date with the code they were originally issued with. Crimestoppers then inform the caller whether they are eligible for a reward. If they are, the caller can choose a bank branch and a date when they would like to collect the money. The caller then goes to the bank branch, provides them with the code and is issued with the cash reward.[15]

Website security flaws

For most of 2015 the Crimestoppers online reporting website, touted as secure and anonymous, received an "F" rating in industry standard security tests, using obsolete 20-year-old protocols that made it fundamentally insecure. Crimestoppers fixed these problems in November 2015, ahead of the National Crime Agency and Independent Police Complaints Commission, which still had unfixed problems of the same magnitude at that date.[16]

Results

According to their own statistics, the promise of anonymity has never been broken. As a result of the information given to Crimestoppers:[17]

  • Nearly 134,000 arrests and charges have been made since 1988.
  • Over 1.6 million actionable calls have been received since 1988.
  • More than £131 million of stolen goods has been recovered since 1988.
  • More than £326 million of drugs have been seized since 1988.
  • Around 14 people are arrested every day as a result of information given to Crimestoppers.
  • At least 23% of all information received helps the police deliver an outcome, from arresting someone to preventing a crime.

References

  1. ↑ "Impact Report". September 2023. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
  2. ↑ Shaw, Danny (18 October 2018). "Why more young people are using Crimestoppers". BBC News. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
  3. ↑ "Crime Stoppers in Albuquerque". U.S. Department of Justice. Retrieved 22 November 2023.
  4. ↑ "Blue Plaques".
  5. ↑ "Campaigns | Crimestoppers".
  6. ↑ cms-user20. "Fraud". www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk. Retrieved 21 October 2022. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  7. ↑ "Game of Fraud".
  8. ↑ "Campaigns | Crimestoppers".
  9. ↑ "Analysis of 2020 National Human Trafficking Hotline Data | Polaris". polarisproject.org. 6 January 2022. Retrieved 21 October 2022.
  10. ↑ "Campaigns | Crimestoppers".
  11. ↑ "Campaigns | Crimestoppers".
  12. ↑ "Campaigns | Crimestoppers".
  13. ↑ "The Official Web Pages of Douglas Hall". Archived from the original on 5 November 1999.
  14. ↑ "Community | Crimestoppers".
  15. ↑ "Give information | Crimestoppers".
  16. ↑ Leyden, John (20 November 2015). "Crimestoppers finally revamps weak crypto. Take your time guys". The Register. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  17. ↑ "About the charity | Crimestoppers".
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