CRIME STOPPERS CLEAN UP

The potent blend of a cash incentive and a guarantee of anonymity
helped Crime Stoppers bag property, drugs and narcotics worth just
over 5.7 million in northwestern Ontario last year.

Crime Stoppers marked their fifteenth year in the region with 982
cases and helped make 1,241 arrests. Total recoveries included
$884,204 in property, $1,979,969 in drugs and $2,864,173 in narcotics.

The region includes eight Crime Stopper boards, each one made up of 10
to 12 volunteers. Petrina Taylor, OPP detective constable, coordinates
the entire northwest region covering, Sioux Narrows, Atikokan, Dryden,
Ignace, Fort Frances, Sioux Lookout, Pickle Lake, Red Lake, Ear Falls
and Kenora.

The service is based on confidentiality. Once a caller provides
information, a code number is assigned to that person who is asked to
call back within approximately two to three weeks. Then, the caller is
asked if there are any updates on the case. Any tips that help solve a
crime are rewarded with cash.

A dollar figure is assigned as a reward, Taylor said, based upon how
many cases were solved, number of charges laid, amount of property
returned and the value of drugs seized. The maximum tip is $2,000. To
her knowledge, the biggest reward paid was $1,500 for a drug-related
tip.

Cash payment is made in whichever manner the caller prefers. They can
select a drop zone of their own choosing or use the program's system.

While larger cities use banks to pay callers, northwestern Ontario
uses local businesses. Up to three are selected in each town as
pick-up spots. The caller is asked if he or she knows anyone at any of
the business. If not, then the caller goes to an agreed upon business,
identifies themselves to a contact using the assigned code number and
receives an envelope of cash in return.

"Then they walk away, no words exchanged," Taylor said. Only at that
point does the caller discover the amount of the award.

Taylor remembers some creative drop spots. One caller requested the
envelope of cash be pinned to the cork message board in the Kenora
Shoppers Mall. Another asked to have the envelope taped beneath a
merry-go-round.

"The person is sitting there watching you," she said. "You don't know
who it is nor do you care." You walk away, she said, and pray that
they got it.

Some callers have either come to other communities or go to other
communities to pick up their payments.

"You have to do what works in your area," she said, adding that the
program hasn't had any problems so far. Total rewards paid last year
equaled $93, 575.

She said people call for different reasons. Some want to help their
community while others want to rid themselves of their competition,
"such as other drug dealers," she said.

"We don't care who calls, who we take the information from," she said.
"We just want the information."

Callers, she said, don't immediately enquire about the money, but they
do ask how the system works.

"They want to know if they're being taped, if we have call display or
tracing," she said. Headquartered at the downtown OPP office, Taylor
said the caller's identity is secure, that there are no tracing systems.

"I don't even have a display module on my phone," she
said.

Although the majority of tips are drug related, calls come in for all
sorts of reasons, she said. They can include theft, bootlegging and
fraud. During hunting season, illegal hunting tips come in for the
Ministry of Natural Resources. In her nearly five years experience,
Taylor hasn't received a homicide tip.

Crime Stoppers originated in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1976 when a
cash reward was offered to help solve the murder of a gas station attendant.