Crime Stoppers was the brainchild of a young Albuquerque detective who was concerned by the number of unsolved cases he and fellow detectives were working, and was particularly frustrated that he had exhausted all possible leads on the murder of a young college student. He felt informa­tion that would solve the crime was avail­able from someone other than the criminal. That principle led to the major factors that needed to be addressed so individuals would come forward.

FEAR: Some people feared the court system. Others were frightened of the retaliation from the criminals they would be giving information against. Offering anonymity to people who provided information about crimes was the key to solving this problem.

APATHY: Some did not want to get caught up in the judicial system; others did not want to testify in court. There was a reluctance to get involved. This detective recognized that many people he was trying to get informa­tion from were not going to provide the facts unless there was something in it for them. The answer was paying a Reward for information that led to an arrest. Accepting the fact that a tight budget would not allow much money to establish a reward fund, the detective set out to ask local business leaders to raise the funds.

The next hurdle to cross was publicity. Help was enlisted from the local media to publicize the first “Crime of the Week” and the phone number to call with infor­mation. With a lot of hard work, the first Crime Stoppers program was born on September 8, 1976. The first call received by the program resulted in the arrest of three men, within 72 hours, who had been involved in the homicide of a student that had occurred four months earlier.

Since the first case, more than 1,000 commu­nity and scholastic programs have started. Today, Crime Stoppers reaches around the world and is represented in the United States, Canada, Caribbean, Latin America, Europe, Australia and the South/Western Pacific regions.