An Advantage To Traveling With The Bad Crowd

Easy pocket change:

Calls to the Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers hot line in the first quarter of this year were up 30 percent over last year. San Antonio had a 44 percent increase. In Wichita, the year-over-year jump was 70 percent.

Cities and towns such as Detroit and Omaha and Beaufort County, N.C., report increases of 25 percent or more in the first quarter, with tipsters telling operators they need the money for rent, light bills or baby formula.

"For this year, everyone that's called has pretty much been just looking for money," said Sgt. Lawrence Beller, who answers Crime Stoppers calls at the Sussex County (N.J.) Sheriff's Office. "That's as opposed to the last couple of years, where some people were just sick of the crime and wanting to do something about it."

...A woman called the Regional Crime Stoppers line in Macon, Ga., recently to find out when she could pick up her reward money for a recent tip. She was irritated to learn that she would have to wait from Friday until Monday.

"I'm in a bind, I'm really in a bind," she told the hot-line operator. "There's a lot of stuff I know, but I didn't open my mouth. If I weren't in a bind, I wouldn't open my mouth."

When she learned the money was not available, she said she would call back with the whereabouts of another suspect whom she had just seen "going down the road."

...Some Crime Stoppers coordinators say their program appeals to community spirit and emphasize that not everyone who calls is after money. But their advertising makes no bones about the benefits of a good tip.

"Crime doesn't pay but we do," say the mobile billboards cruising Jacksonville, Fla. A poster in Jackson, Tenn., draws a neat equation: "Ring Ring + Bling Bling = Cha-Ching." The bling, in this case, is a pair of handcuffs.

Crime Stoppers programs strictly protect the anonymity of callers. Each tip is assigned a number, and if the tip results in an arrest, the caller can collect a cash reward, usually by going to a designated bank. Some programs pay tipsters within hours of an arrest; others have monthly meetings to approve reward amounts.

Not only have the number of tips increased, several program coordinators said, but people are also more diligent about calling back to find out if and when they can collect.

..."We have people out there that, realistically, this could be their job," said Sgt. Zachary Self, who answers Crime Stoppers calls for the Macon Police Department.

"Two or three arrests per week, you could make $700, $750 per week," Self said. "You could make better than a minimum-wage job."