Crime Stoppers: pros and cons?

[MattC]

Crime Stoppers consists of local non-profit organizations with paid affiliations to either state, national, or world Crime Stopper organizations (or a mix of the three). They provide cash rewards to anonymous tipsters whose information leads to arrests. The rewards are based on a sliding scale based on the crime, the quality of the information, the risk to the caller, and the amount of property recovered if applicable.

Crime Stoppers is often involved with local gun trade-in programs. The program frequently rewards individuals who are themselves criminals, though by no means all recipients are criminals. The problem is that if rewards go to criminals, they could likely use the money to purchase drugs, illegal guns, etc. Ironically, the greater the criminal turned in (and hence larger reward), the morally worse the informant usually is. For these big "tips," it is often suspected that the informant is trying to either take vengence on someone or to remove a competitor. Granted, sometimes it's the neighbor reporting the drug house next door--but should they need a monetary reward to report that?

So does the support for gun trade-ins and the frequent rewards to criminals outweigh the benefits of capturing criminals who it could have taken much longer to catch, if at all? Does anyone have numbers on whether or not Crime Stoppers reduces crime rates or increases community response to criminals? Does Crime Stopper help more or hurt more?

Sorry if this is a bit off topic for the board, but I'm having trouble answering the question on my own. I live in liberal Madison, WI, and don't have many people to talk to about crime control up here who wouldn't start blaming society.

Thanks for any opinions on the matter.

-Matt

 

[Standing Wolf]

Crime Stoppers is often involved with local gun trade-in programs.

If that means guns shops taking old guns in trade so people can upgrade to more powerful, more reliable new firearms, I'm whole-heartedly in favor of it.

 

[M2 Carbine]

I believe it was jimmy carter that stopped the CIA from doing business with the low lifes in the world.
So our intellegence went in the toilet.

Who else is going to know what's going on in the criminal world but another criminal or near criminal, so you have to deal with them.

You sure aren't going to find out who the bad guys are by asking the local school teacher.

I don't believe in wasting money on gun by backs and such though.

 

[Biker]

M2 Carbine...

A fair point.
Biker

 

[c_yeager]

To be a little contrarian, Crime Stoppers does allow accessories to crimes to profit from their affiliation with criminals. On the other hand getting bad guys off the street does stop an amount of crime. On yet another hand, handing a wad of cash to the lowlife that turned in another lowlife might make it worse. I guess I'm amblivilant.

As far as the gun turn-in thing, im ambilivilant about that too. Noone is forced to turn in a gun, if that is what they want to do, then I dont have a problem with them doing it.

 

[Zen21Tao]

So does the support for gun trade-ins and the frequent rewards to criminals outweigh the benefits of capturing criminals who it could have taken much longer to catch, if at all?

(To take a page from the antis playbook and make an emotional respose based a single imagined outcome...) Tell the parents of a slain kid that their childs killer will not be brought to justice because the murder weapon in the kids case was obtained through a gun buy-back program with not questions asked to the person that turned the gun in.

Does anyone know if the "no questions asked" policy applies to just that moment they turn in the weapon or if it means no questions could be asked at any time from the turn-in moment on? If the latter is the case one has to wonder how many murderers could turn in their murder weapon so they could never be questioned about a crime commited with that weapon in the future under the "no questions asked" policy.

 

[Thain]

In almost all cases the Power That Be include some nice legal fine-print on the wavier/pamphlet that explaisn that there is no actual legal immunity in the program. Which would me is Joe Murderer turns in his smoking gun, they could nail him if they tested it.

Problem is that they don't check these weapons, they just melt them into slag and then complain that they can't find the TEC-9 used in last weeks drive-by... Oh, and since we can't find the gun we should trace all these bullet cases. :banghead:

Honestly, I wouldn't have a problem with a State-administered, Police-operated gun turn-in / dispossal program. I mean, firearms are not something you want to just stick into your trashcan on garbage day, y'know? But the police should require ID, record your name and address, and should run a ballistic check agianst any open firearms crimes if appropraite (e.g, in the wake a recent murder with a 9mm SMG, you test the 9mm's being traded in - not the .22's) Unused ammo should be collected for dispossal, no questions asked.

After vetting the weapons, your records are deleted... and you get zero recompense. The guns are then wholesaled to FFLs in the municiplaity, or auctioned off to the public... the state channels the resources into maintaining the program or funding firearms education.