The Crime Stoppers concept provides a method of overcoming these limitations and involving citizens in the solution of crime. Otherwise, these citizens may call in once with information, but certainly will not call a second time if they are shuffled and transferred from one person or department to another. Once these citizens “work up the courage” to contact the police, they must be assured that whomever they talk to will be interested in, and respond to whatever information they relay. In other instances, citizens may not come forward with information because they lack the knowledge of how or whom to contact in the police organization. If the police fail to provide this anonymity, the result is usually the loss of vital information due to the lack of willingness to cooperate. In order to share information with police, they must be assured they will be provided complete anonymity. In most of these instances these citizens will not come forward with information. It may be due to fear, they believe if they reveal their own identity then they would expose themselves or their families to acts of retaliation by the criminal. The incident must be recalled to their attention and explain what information is needed by the police to solve the crime.Īll too often, citizens do not contact the police with information that could help solve a crime. In order for the police to receive this vital information, the citizens must be made aware of the importance of the information they possess. Consequently, they unknowingly possess key information that could aid police in solving the crime. Quite often, citizens witness all or part of a crime without being aware of what they have seen. When this occurs, a method is needed that will re-awaken public interest and will also call upon citizens for help in providing the needed information. For this reason, most police department files contain many unsolved cases. The trail becomes cold, evidence becomes unobtainable, and the crime becomes increasingly more difficult to solve.
When a criminal case is not solved within a reasonable length of time, the investigative leads diminish.
0 kommentar(er)
