CRIME SCENE

Contact Article
April 2008

           The landscape appears grim:
Daily public complaints about “a rising crime wave”.  One newspaper puts out an estimate that says there more than 1,000 murderers, roaming this country undeterred, because of a low Police detection rate.
Added to this -- and more frighteningly -- there is the more recent trend of State witnesses being murdered.

For Crime Stoppers Trinidad and Tobago the task has never before been so challenging; in the face of the above, it is required to maintain the integrity of the Programme, which it has been running since 1999.
 It must continue, soldiering on, assuring the public that its 24-Hour Call Centre, “watch” is there, ever-alert -- as a beacon, providing citizens with the assurance that its system of 800-TIPS (8477) is “Safe and It Works”.

The Police Service, on the other hand, has indicated that some of its anti-crime measures did not yield the expected result, and are to being reviewed.
 Crime Stoppers Trinidad and Tobago is about to roll out two new initiatives in support of those measures being adopted by the Police Service.
The first is a Crime Stoppers “Crime Scene” Campaign.
It has begun working with the executive of the Police Service on a system of crime reporting in which  it will identify some  incidents of crimes that they can enlist public support.

The executive has already informed all of the Heads of its Divisions across the country that they will be required to send information to the Police Coordinator on incidents of crimes, which members of the public could come forward with tips that could lead to early detection.

For e.g., the public will be made aware, through a series of “Crime Scene” Press/Radio advertisements, of what may be a seemingly “meaningless” item at a crime scene, or the special markings on a car that was seen in the area of the crime, or the tattoo, or some identifiable physical qualities of a person, who may have been around the scene at the time of incident, etc.  In fact, any aspect that could assist the Police in finding solutions.

Public support is being enlisted, therefore, in the hope that its members would be moved to report such information, willingly, and on the basis of the trust that the Crime Stoppers Programme has built up over the past nine years.
The second initiative, which is still being ironed out with the Police executive is what is being called --so far -- a “Crime Stoppers (Illegal) Gun Retrieval” Programme.
Crime Stoppers has proposed a designated period, probably two weeks, in which members of the public will be encouraged to come forward i.e. calling into  the 800-TIPS (8487) Call Centre with information they may have on illegal guns.

The campaign will appeal to those persons, who are aware of illegal guns lodged, secretly, or held by others, who so far have gone undetected.
Again, Crime Stoppers hopes that those citizens would be so moved -- in the face of the above crime wave -- to come forward with information on such activity.