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Trends & Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice

No. 272: Crime stoppers : evaluating Victoria's program

Dennis Challinger
ISBN 0 642 53834 4 ; ISSN 0817-8542
December 2003

Abstract

Crime Stoppers Victoria (CSV) commenced in 1987 and is "a community-based initiative which encourages members of the public to provide information on unsolved crimes, wanted people and people they know are involved in criminal activity". It is one of over 1,000 Crime Stoppers programs around the world all of which provide a mechanism for citizens to pass information anonymously to the police by phone. Victoria Police department staff operate the Crime Stoppers call centre, where they receive and process crime information and then refer it to appropriate investigators. This paper presents the findings of an evaluation of the Crime Stoppers Victoria program. The program is evaluated on the following measures: the level of community awareness of the program; media support for it; participation in the program by the community; the relative value of calls to the program, measured by tracking the results of its information reports to investigators; the perception of the program by the police; and the economic value of the program. The report finds that the various assessments of these measures show the overall soundness and value of Crime Stoppers Victoria, and concludes by recommending a number of improvements to the program.

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