Frequently Asked Questions
Crime Stoppers is a non-profit organization that takes calls from people who want to report a crime and wish to remain totally anonymous. Crime Stoppers is one way that citizens can assist police by calling information into their local Crime Stoppers office and never having to identify themselves or testify in court.
Crime Stoppers takes information phoned or submitted to our secure tip line anonymously and passes it along to the investigators at the appropriate law enforcement agency. (St. Thomas Police Services, Aylmer Police Services, OPP, RCMP, etc). The ‘TIPSTER’ is never identified but is assigned a code number. The tip is investigated. The police will inform Crime Stoppers on how the case is progressing so it is important for the caller to call back for an update on the case during regular business hours.
After you call, we create a report that brings together all the information you told us. The call handler will check to make sure that the report contains no information that might identify you.
The report is sent to the relevant authority who will deal with the information. This could be the police or it could be an agency such as the MNR, Immigration, etc. They have the legal responsibility to investigate the information prior to acting on it to ensure the information is correct and not given to us maliciously in order to set someone up. The police can not get a search warrant or make an arrest based solely on a tip; there must be other intelligence to support the Crime Stoppers information.
Once the information has been researched, the police will allocate it to the appropriate officer or team to deal with. This could mean more research or it could mean action will be taken.
Crime Stoppers will take any information that will help Law Enforcement solve crime as well as help in the seizure of illicit drugs, recover stolen property, or help in the location of missing person.
Crime Stoppers is not run by the police. We are separate and apart from any Law Enforcement Agency. Crime Stoppers is a non-profit, charitable program run by volunteers from the community. The individuals who have given their time to sit on local committees or the Board of Directors cannot be employed by any law enforcement agency. All the money raised for Crime Stoppers comes through donations or fund raising. Police agencies provide no financial support to Crime Stoppers, although they do designate a member of their service to act as a coordinator.
If the information is good and law enforcement uses the information to help solve a crime, the caller may be eligible for a reward. A reward must be recommended and approved by the Board of Directors of Sudbury Rainbow Crime Stoppers. Once the reward is approved, arrangements are made for the caller to pick up their cash reward in a way that is secure.
Crime Stoppers takes tips about crimes that have already been committed or are about to occur. Crime Stoppers also takes information regarding the whereabouts of wanted persons, stolen property, narcotics, or any other criminal activity.
If it is urgent or an emergency please do not call Crime Stoppers. Please call 911 or your Local Police Department.
It may take some time before the police act on the information you have given. There could be many reasons for that; the information may be part of a larger investigation and visible action might be delayed for some time or the information may remain on file to be used at a later time. Even if your information appears not to have been used or if you don’t see a quick resolution, don’t think your information was not useful.
Feel free to call back at any time to add or update information or to just check on the status of your tip. Make sure you give your personal code when you call; otherwise Crime Stoppers will not give you any information about your or any other tip.
Crime Stoppers does not have call display or call trace on any of its telephones nor do we record any calls and your IP address in not available to us. That would be in direct contradiction to one of the cornerstones of the Crime Stoppers program – anonymity. Crime Stoppers guarantees that you will remain anonymous whenever you call our Tips Line. If we subscribed to call display or call trace that guarantee of anonymity would be gone and the program would suffer serious consequences.
Crime Stoppers can offer anonymity to its callers because of a legal rule of evidence, which says police do not have to reveal information which might identify a person who supplies them with information concerning criminal activity. In February of 1997 the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously decided that callers to Crime Stoppers programs were entitled to the protection of this privilege. In a typical case which started from a Crime Stoppers tip, the identity of the informer is unknown to both the Crime Stoppers Coordinator who took the call or on line tip and the case investigator. The Supreme Court went on to confirm that the privilege is so broad in scope it prevents disclosure not only of the name of the informer (even if it were it to be known) but also of any information which might implicitly reveal his or her identity. This is the premise behind the claim that ‘Crime Stoppers guarantees the tipsters anonymity.’
Become a Director or Volunteer or Make a donation or Call in a tip or Submit a tip online.
Keep Yourself Anonymous
If you send a tip online please remember to check your “Sent” Folder in your email client and delete anything mailed to Crime Stoppers!
This will help keep you anonymous.
After submitting your tip, you will be provided with your own unique ID number that you will use when checking the status of your tip or picking up your reward.
If you are concerned about the St. Thomas Crime Stoppers web address showing up in your browsing history follow the instructions below to activate a privacy feature on your browser of choice.
Internet Explorer
To activate inPrivate Browsing, select ‘Tools’ from the bar at the top of the browser window and ‘inPrivate Browsing’ will be one of the options available. To clear browser history, select ‘Tools’ again and then ‘Delete Browsing History’.
Firefox
To activate Private Browsing, select ‘Tools’ from the bar at the top of the browser window and ‘Start Private Browsing’ will be one of the options available. To clear browser history select ‘Tools’ again and then ‘Clear Recent History’.
Chrome
Click on the blue wrench icon near the top right-hand corner of the browser window and select ‘New Incognito Window’ To clear browser history, click on the blue wrench icon again and select ‘Clear Browsing Data’
Rewards Program
Rewards are available for any caller who provides information leading to the arrest and charge of a suspect.
Not every piece of information is eligible for a reward, and not every caller wants a reward – in fact, our statistics indicate that less than 40% of callers who can claim a reward actually do so. All rewards are paid without compromising a caller’s anonymity.
If a caller to the Crimestoppers office is eligible for a reward, the caller is given a code number, then asked to call back on a given date.
Tips that lead to the arrest and charge of a suspect, as well as the recovery of stolen property and drugs, are eligible for cash rewards of up to $2,000, which are paid to tipsters on an anonymous basis.
If the information brings about an arrest and charge, a reward is authorized by the Board of Directors. When the caller calls back, they will be informed of the location to pick up their reward anonymously. They will go to the location on a given date and quote the code numbers to the staff.
The reward will then be paid in cash, with no signature or personal details supplied.
In this way, Crimestoppers continues to protect your identity and ensure your anonymity.
Disclaimer: By providing information that Crime Stoppers will share with law enforcement agencies, you are providing an important and valuable public service. We understand that disclosure of your identity might put you at risk. We do everything we can to protect your anonymity. However, that anonymity may be open to challenge in the following situations:
- A call to Crime Stoppers made with the intention of “furthering criminal activity or interfering with the administration of justice”. A party who is guilty of a crime cannot use Crime Stoppers to try to divert the blame onto someone else. Crime Stoppers cannot be used to try to “frame” an innocent person.
- There is evidence that disclosure of some or all of a tip is necessary to establish someone’s innocence.
- A tipster having received the benefit of full legal advice may, for his or her own reasons, elect to waive the privilege.
For a fuller explanation of these principles, help us to help you by reading and understanding the “Tipster Information” on the Canadian Crime Stoppers website.