Residents provided 586 tips to Chatham-Kent Crime Stoppers in 2021, leading to 145 charges being laid.
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Residents provided 586 tips to Chatham-Kent Crime Stoppers in 2021, leading to 145 charges being laid.
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The tips also led to 55 arrests, 109 cleared cases and $ 328,500 in property recovered and drugs seized, according to the organization’s annual report.
“It’s pretty consistent with what we’ve had over the last two years,” David Bakker, the local Crime Stoppers program co-ordinator, said. “We’re down a little bit in phone calls or tips that we’ve received, but the rest of the numbers are very consistent.”
Bakker said the number of tips received is the most important statistic.
“That means that the public is calling us to give us information,” he said. “We put the information out and we’re hoping that they’ll respond back to us by giving the information and help solve crimes.”
The crimes range from identification of a person whose photo has been released to a homicide, but Bakker said they will take tips on anything.
With a drug investigation, for example, the tip is usually passed on to the Chatham-Kent Police Service drug unit, Bakker said.
“They investigate it, they go out, they do a search warrant, they make a series of arrests and seizures of drugs and stolen property, and all the things that go along with drug investigations,” he said.
“They tell me what the results of the investigation are in relation to the information that we give them in the tip and we take that information to the Crime Stoppers board of directors.”
The board decides how much reward money the tip is worth, which could range between $ 100 and $ 1,000, Bakker said. The local Crime Stoppers usually gives out $ 4,500 to $ 5,500 a year in rewards, he said.
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Chatham-Kent Crime Stoppers works with both the Chatham-Kent Police Service and the Ontario Provincial Police. Since the hotline is available across Canada, sometimes calls are passed on to police services in other jurisdictions, Bakker said.
“We take tips on animal abuse and border issues and anything,” he said. “Any type of tip we can take, we take and then we find somebody to investigate it.”
Since its inception in 1987, the local Crime Stoppers has received 28,980 tips, leading to 7,641 arrests, 16,359 charges, 11,230 cases cleared, $ 10,505,651 in property recovered and $ 103,792,396 in drugs seized, according to the report.