Crimestoppers UK

Crimestoppers UK is an independent crime-fighting charitable organization in the United Kingdom. Crimestoppers runs the 0800 555 111 phone number, allowing people to call anonymously to pass on information about crime. People can also pass on information anonymously via a secure online information form on Crimestoppers website. As with other Crimestoppers organisations, callers are not required to give their name or any personal information, and calls cannot be traced.

Crimestoppers UK is a member of Crime Stoppers International, an umbrella organisation of similar organisations.

Televised Appeals

In 1988, Crimestoppers began to appear on ITV in the former HTV, Thames, Yorkshire and Tyne Tees regions. These adverts, roughly two minutes long, would feature a reconstruction of a crime and an appeal for anybody with information about the crime mentioned to contact Crimestoppers.

Originally, the advert would begin with a moving mouth montage with Crime (in white) and Stoppers (in red) underneath it on a grey background and feature a synthesized theme. The original advert was hard hitting, but also scared younger children who were frightened by the graphics and music of the advert. In the late 1990s, Crimestoppers advertised appeals were more gentle although the synthesized music remained during the filmed reconstruction, and were also sponsored by local businesses. From 2006, advertised appeals became rarer - dropping from about seven per week (roughly one a day, although it was not uncommon for two appeals to be broadcast in a day) to once a week on Sunday at 6.30 p.m. with a gentle introduction and as well as an appeal would feature advice on staying safe from criminals by a Police Constable.

Appeals were generally shown at either 9.57 a.m. (before The Time The Place or This Morning), 3.27 p.m. (before Children's ITV), 6.27 p.m. (after the local ITV news) or late at night after News At Ten or the late movie. The voice-over would be an employee of the local ITV station (in the case of HTV Wales, this would normally be Alan Rustad, Arfon Haines Davies or Dilwyn Young-Jones).

Most Wanted

In November 2005 Crimestoppers launched its Most Wanted website. On Most Wanted, members of the public can look at images of people currently wanted by UK law enforcement. Police from across the UK choose the most wanted appeals that are shown on the website. More than 1500 people pictured on Crimestoppers’ Most Wanted website have been arrested since its launch.^[1]

Campaigns

Crimestoppers runs a number of campaigns each year appealing for information about different crime types. Recent campaigns include one on domestic violence and one on drugs.

The domestic violence campaign, Break the Silence around Domestic Violence, provided information to the public on how to help yourself or a friend who is suffering from domestic violence. In 2004 changes occurred in the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act that give victims more protection. The Act also allows information given by third parties to play more of a role in building a prosecution case. Now Crimestoppers is asking for more information from third parties in order to get offenders prosecuted.^[2]

Crimestoppers ran a campaign in line with the UK Home Office's National Tackling Drugs Week in June 2009. The campaign focused on cannabis cultivation. During this week Crimestoppers asked the public to help rid drugs from their communities by passing on information about drug-related crime anonymously to the charity Crimestoppers or to the police. ^[3]

On 15 November 2010 Crimestoppers launched a UK-wide anti-counterfeiting campaign. The campaign lasted for a month and focused on four types of counterfeiting in particular (counterfeit cigarettes, counterfeit money, counterfeit fashion goods and counterfeit DVDs^[4]). Crimestoppers made a microsite, called Fakes Fund Crime, as part of the campaign. The Fakes Fund Crime site features information about how to spot fakes, about how counterfeit goods harm you and about how they fund crime. The charity's partners for the campaign included the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), the Film Distributors Association (FDA), Pentland Ltd and the Bank Of England.^[5]

Catching UK criminals abroad

Crimestoppers works with partners including the Serious Organised Crime Agency and the UK Border Agency to track down UK criminals that are believed to be on the run in Europe.

Operation Captura is Crimestoppers’ campaign that aims to track down UK criminals on the run in Spain. Spain has been a popular place for UK criminals to hide, but in 2004 European Arrest Warrants came into effect making it easier to catch criminals in Spain. Operation Captura works to get information out about wanted criminals that are believed to be in Spain, so people there can try and identify them. Since Operation Captura was launched in 2006, 51 of 65 wanted criminals have been arrested.^[6] The campaign celebrated its fifth anniversary in October 2011, launching its latest appeal at the British Embassy in Madrid.

Crimestoppers worked with the Serious Organised Crime Agency, Dutch Crimestoppers and the Dutch Police to launch Operation Return in March 2010. Operation Return aimed to track down six UK criminals that were believed to be on the run in the Netherlands. This list consist of some of UK’s most dangerous criminals that are wanted for crimes that vary from drugs smuggling, the illegal sale of firearms, robbery, violence and rape. To date, two of the wanted individuals have been located.^[7] A second Operation Return appeal was made in Amsterdam in June 2011, with six new wanted criminals made public. To date, of the 12 individuals appealed for in total, five of them have been arrested.

Fearless

In April 2010 Crimestoppers launched Fearless, its brand for 11 to 16-year-olds. Fearless replaces ShadowCS, Crimestoppers’ old youth brand. Fearless allows teens to report crime anonymously and also provides workshops about crimes that affect young people. There are three different ways to report crime to Fearless. You can use the secure online form or call Crimestoppers at 0800 555 111. All these ways are 100% anonymous and are a safe way for teens to give information about crime.^[8] A mobile site for Fearless was launched in March 2012, allowing youngsters to pass on information while on the move through their mobile phone (this method also conforms to the anonymity guarantee). A mobile version of the Crimestoppers website was also launched at the same time.

Rewards

Crimestoppers pays rewards for information supplied that results in an arrest being made. The amount paid ranges from £50 to £1,000, depending on the severity of the crime. They do not pay rewards for the recovery of stolen property. An individual's anonymity is not compromised by claiming a reward - when an individual passes information on to Crimestoppers, they are issued with a code. If an individual wants to check whether they are eligible for a reward, they are requested to call Crimestoppers again at a later date with the code they were originally issued with. Crimestoppers will inform the caller whether they are eligible for a reward. If they are, the caller then chooses a bank branch and a date when they would like to collect the reward. The caller then goes to the bank branch, provides them with the code and will be issued with the cash reward.^[9]

History

Crimestoppers was started in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk in 1983. It was founded by a detective inspector with Norfolk Constabulary, a local store manager, and the editor of the Yarmouth Mercury newspaper.^[10] The inspector had learned of the scheme in an official visit to Illinois and brought the idea back with him. Subsequently other areas of the country learned of it and took it up.^[11]

In 1985, PC Keith Blakelock was murdered during the riots at the Broadwater Farm Estate in London and the police appealed for information, stating that people knew who had been responsible but were frightened of coming forward.

Michael Ashcroft (now Lord Ashcroft, KCMG and Chairman of the Trustees of Crimestoppers), a businessman, offered to provide the police with money for a reward to encourage somebody to come forward with information. This led to discussions with the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, resulting in Michael Ashcroft founding the establishment of a national operation in the UK in January 1988. He set up the charity and together with some business colleagues who were also concerned about the rise in violent crime, they funded the UK operation as the Community Action Trust

The charity was renamed Crimestoppers in 1995, by then covering the whole of the UK, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. Initially, the administrative organisation was based on ITV regions, but the best model proved to be local county-based committees working in partnership with single police forces. The roll-out of this structure continues; there are now 38 volunteer committees across the UK and a further increase will follow, as volunteer numbers grow sufficiently to set up these new, more locally focused groups.

The concept of businesses establishing a partnership with the media and the police to help solve crimes in this way, chimed with a study undertaken by the Metropolitan Police Service who had come across Crimestoppers in America, originating some 10 years earlier in Albuquerque.

Lord Ashcroft, KCMG has been Chairman of the Trustees of Crimestoppers for the last 20 years and a core supporter and donor to the charity throughout this period.^[12]

In January 2011 Crimestopper UK began working with the Crimestoppers group from Barbados, West Indies.^[13][14] During the overseas exercise members of Crimestoppers UK trained roughly one hundred members of the Royal Barbados Police Force.^[15]

Results

In the 24 years that Crimestoppers UK has been fighting crime, they have never broken their anonymity promise. As a result of the information given to Crimestoppers, 23 people are arrested every day and somebody is charged with murder every seven days. Over 114,000 individuals have been arrested as a result of information passed to Crimestoppers.^[16]

References

External links

• Crimestoppers UK
• Fearless
• Crimestoppers Most Wanted
• Crimestoppers Trust, Registered Charity no. 1108687 at the Charity Commission