POLK STUDENTS CAN EARN CASH REPORTING CRIMES

Program Rewards Those Who Provide Valuable Tips

LAKELAND -- Need a little extra cash for the holidays? How does $500
sound? If you are a Polk County student with information about
criminal activity on campus, then you may be in luck.

Student Crime Stoppers is giving students who report crime information
on a school campus a chance to earn a little, or a lot, of cash.

If a student tip leads to an arrest, or would have had the school not
taken its own action, then that tipster will be awarded cash, no
questions asked.

Tipsters automatically earn $500 for reporting a firearm on
campus.

One hundred dollars is given for drug arrests.

And students who report other crimes, such as violence, smoking and
vandalism, can receive $10 to $50 depending on the tip.

So far this school year, $1,640 has been given to tipsters in the
Student Crime Stoppers program.

Student Crime Stoppers is similar to its adult counterpart, Polk
County Crime Stoppers, which is an organization that works with law-
enforcement agencies to help solve crimes by offering cash rewards for
information that leads to arrests.

This is the second school year that the program has been in place in
Polk schools, but the first year that it's been a point of emphasis
for school resource officers, school and Lakeland police officials
say.

Law-enforcement and school officials say the tips program is a great
way for students to anonymously report criminal activity -such as when
their peers bring cigarettes, drugs and weapons on campus -- without
being branded a snitch.

Student Crime Stoppers gives each student an identification number
when they call the tips hot line, and no one ever asks or knows their
name, not even the police officer investigating the case.

School officials hope the program will cut into campus
crime.

Of 23 tips the Lakeland Police Department received this school year,
12 led to arrests.

Lakeland Highlands Middle has accounted for a majority of those
reports, largely because of the efforts of School Resource Officer
Laura Plumley, officials say.

Plumley, a Lakeland police officer, helped coordinate program efforts,
which included a large banner on campus, stickers with the Crime
Stoppers phone number and a student-produced video.

Similar to what you might find on MTV, the video portrays multiple
scenarios of crimes on campus, with catchy background music.

The scenes flash back and forth and include a student who took pills
and then passed out in the school restroom, and another student who
brought a gun on campus to shoot a classmate.

The video ends with the words "Stop it before it happens."

"I've had a lot of great feedback (from the video)," Plumley
said.

Greg Bondurant, director of discipline and security for Polk schools,
said one of the best things about the program is that taxpayers are
not paying for the cash rewards.

Through a grant, the Crime Stoppers program is given about $200,000
annually from criminal court fines, said Wayne Cross of Polk County
Crime Stoppers.

Tips can be reported to Polk County Crime Stoppers and Student Crime
Stoppers 24 hours a day at 800-226-8477.