Well, I have some special insight into Crimestoppers.

First, the vast majority of the payouts go to scumbags who ratted out other scumbags.  I mean like 95% plus of the approved payouts.

Where I live, the approved payouts get picked up about half the time, the other half the time they are not picked up and the money goes back to CrimeStoppers.  The reason for this is not obvious, but boils down to this:

Say you're a gang member or a drug dealer.  You rat out Johnny Skin down the road and get awarded a $2000 payout from CS.  If you're the drug dealer, what's another $2k... Johnny's gone, you've got his territory, you win.  If you're the gang guy, and suddenly show up flush while Johnny's locked up, the rest of the gang is probably going to suspect.  Ditto for wives ratting their husbands, kids ratting their parents, etc.  In essence, none of those people care about the money, so they don't pick it up.

Most payouts are also substantially less than the maximum.  They actually have a point scale on which a crime that is reported is scored, and the score combined with a local multiplier determines the payout.

It's much easier to audit than you might think... assuming the volunteers are honest.  Like any volunteer organization that involves money, a scumbag could co-opt it for personal gain.

Last edited by peco (2011-01-31 23:02:48)

choad wrote:

True. Here's a cached WSJ story about my home town from last year.

That is hilarious.  What castles made of sand we live in.

In my town to save money they chose not to renew 2/3 of the police officers contracts. These were young entry level positions normally filled by academy cadets. But they gave these kids guns and turned them loose on the town. It created an untenable situation where these kids would try to push residents around who knew the town laws better then they did. So the new cheif had the entire lot of 'em replaced with cheaper unsworn "safety officers" No guns and no ability to arrest or detain anyone. They had to call a sworn officer to intervene. They were given brown plain uniforms with regular shoes and no troopers hats that make them look like park rangers. They are instructed not to wear sunglasses when conversing with the public. Surprisingly it appears to have worked. There is accountability that is not present in volunteer patrols And it saved a fortune.

As these technically are temp positions they do not threaten the police union. Now if we could only get the regular police officers to stop shutting down construction projects without authorization from the chief. Seems there major source of fleecing the town for overtime is a contact where only gun wielding sworn officers can be flagmen. But the state passed a law where construction with any amount of state money involved requires civilian bids on flagmen and forbids the use of police officers if an alternative exists. But that has not stopped the biggest  projects from being shut down by the pigs this winter. Now the town has no choice but to  defend the officers from lawsuits and AG actions for there illegal activities.

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