Crime Stoppers International

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Crime Stoppers International Foundation or CSI Foundation (CSI) is an umbrella organization that aims to spread the Crimestoppers program in countries around the world. Crimestoppers is a program designed to utilize the media and other resources to entice information from the public that can facilitate police investigations. CSI is run by a volunteer board and its activities include hosting annual training conferences and supporting regional leadership and training programs. CSI coordinates networking resources for local Crimestoppers' operations, such as a website and a print publications called the Caller. It is funded by dues paid by member organizations. Some of the services CSI provides to its members include an annual awards program for local Crimestoppers operations, produces an operations manual to assist new programs and to help set up and guide new Crimestopper programs, and providing legal services to its members. CSI is based in Austin, Texas.

On its website, CSI lists its mission statement as the following: "To develop Crime Stoppers as an effective crime-solving organization throughout the world, with the primary objective of the tri-partite organization, Community, Media and Law Enforcement, being, Working Together to Solve Crime".^[1]

The Crimestoppers program began in the 1970s as an innovation to solve a crime that was committed with no witnesses and few leads for police investigators. The main idea is to produce televised re-enactments, offer rewards and promises of anonymity for information leading an arrest. Detective Greg MacAleese was investigating the murder of a gas station attendent, Michael Carmen, in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1976 when he came up with the idea. At the time, Albuquerque had one of the highest per capita crime rates in the US. Its crime rate has since improved.^[2]