Crime Stoppers

History

The Crime Stoppers organization was founded by Albuquerque, New Mexico, police officer Gregg MacAleese in 1976 as an outgrowth of his efforts to identify and apprehend the perpetrators of a violent homicide. In July 1976, two criminals perpetrating the armed robbery of a gas station shot and killed Michael Carmen, the gas station attendant who was covering the shift of a fellow employee. Michael Carmen was a young college student at the University of New Mexico preparing for his wedding, which was to occur in 2 weeks.

Officer MacAleese, frustrated by the lack of leads in the case, and being no closer to solving the crime 6 weeks after its occurrence, proposed to a local television station manager at KOAT-TV that the station air a reenactment of the crime as part of one of its newscasts. The station manager agreed, and an idea was born. The rationale was simple: Use the local media as a means of reaching a large segment of the local population in the hope of possibly triggering the memory of a witness who might recall seeing something suspicious or out of the ordinary on the night of the murder.

The first reenactment aired in September 1976 on the evening news, and the next morning, the police department received a call from an individual who had seen the reenactment and had information to provide. The caller provided details about suspicious events he had observed the night of the crime, as well as information about a vehicle he had witnessed driving at a high rate of speed near the scene of the crime. The information provided led to the apprehension of the two individuals responsible for Michael Carmen's murder within 72 hours of receiving the original tip.

Creation of Crime Stoppers

The positive response to this innovative information-gathering approach led Officer MacAleese to formally create the Crime Stoppers organization. However, Officer MacAleese knew full well that the public is generally reluctant to provide information about criminal events because of fear and apathy. With this in mind, Crime Stoppers would allow callers to remain anonymous when calling a tip line, and cash rewards would be paid for information leading to the solution of crimes.

With Crime Stoppers now an established crime-fighting organization, a board of directors consisting of citizens to provide civilian oversight was selected from the local community. As Crime Stoppers [Page 122]continued to evolve as an organization, community residents became increasingly involved in all facets of the organization, including becoming telephone tip volunteers; making monetary donations to the tip fund; managing daily operations; and, of course, becoming anonymous informants of criminal events leading to the apprehension and successful prosecution of numerous offenders.

As its popularity grew, and as it caught national interest, Crime Stoppers formally organized into Crime Stoppers—USA in 1979 and held its first conference in 1980. Currently, the primary organization is called Crime Stoppers International, having dropped the USA distinction as part of a reorganizing effort to become an international association of national/geographic regions.

Accomplishments of Crime Stoppers

Crime Stoppers International has 1,148 known programs worldwide, including programs in such places as South Africa, Australia, Micronesia, the West Indies, Canada, and the United States, as well as numerous other locations worldwide. These worldwide programs have thousands of volunteers aiding and implementing these community-based crime control efforts. Worldwide programs have been responsible for more than 900,000 cases cleared and more than 400,000 arrests made. In addition, the programs have recovered property and narcotics valued at more than $5 billion while paying out more than $60 million in reward money for crime tips.

...