Our History

"It’s terrifying,” lament Americans from large urban areas and once peaceful rural communities. “We are no longer safe on our streets, in our stores, and too often not even in our homes or places of worship.” Criminal activity has been escalating and, despite the best efforts of law enforcement officers, there is just too much crime for them to stem the tide alone.

Early in 1981 the Mayor of Baltimore City and the County Executives of three contiguous counties each appointed two citizen volunteers from their jurisdictions, asking them to meet together with the objective of developing some type of positive response on the part of the private sector to the seemingly unending increase in crime. From this initiative Metro Crime Stoppers (MCS) was born.

The methods adopted by MCS were first developed in 1976 by Greg MacAleese, a detective in the Albuquerque, New Mexico, police department who was frustrated by the large number of crimes remaining unsolved because too few citizens seemed willing to come forward with information concerning the identity of wanted felons. He was also dismayed that a large number of crimes were apparently not even being reported by the victims, ostensibly because they feared possible retribution. Following considerable pondering, MacAleese thought of an idea which he felt would work. He contacted H. Coleman Tily, a retired attorney, and together they refined a unique concept for fighting crime in Albuquerque. The concept met with great success and what started as a dream has since been transformed into an international organization of citizen volunteers, Crime Stoppers International, Inc.

The concept developed by MacAleese is now employed in hundreds of independent Crime Stopper programs operated by local citizen volunteers in numerous cities and towns throughout the United States, Canada, England and Australia. It addresses the two major reasons citizens fail to come forward with knowledge about wanted felons: (1) fear and (2) apathy. To counter the fear factor a procedure employing a system of code numbers was developed, chronologically and exclusively assigned to each caller at the time of his/her telephone call, which permitted citizens to provide information anonymously to the Crime Stoppers program. Since the citizen was not required to give his/her name, it was obvious that they did not have to fear retribution. To counter the apathy factor, it being widely recognized that money can be a motivator, it was decided that cash payments of a few hundred dollars would be made to informants if the information they provided led to the arrest and indictment of those responsible for unsolved felony acts. With the concept in place, a major challenge had to be addressed. How could the public be made aware of the program? Moreover, recurring publicity would obviously be required to sustain the public’s awareness and interest. Gradually the idea evolved to select an unsolved crime each week and televise a reenactment of a portion of that crime on local television stations, followed immediately by an appeal to citizens with knowledge about the crime and/or its perpetrators to come forward with that information. The procedure to be employed in providing the information anonymously would be explained at the conclusion of the reenactment, including the promise of a potential cash reward payment for the information. Procedures were also successfully developed for newspaper publicity concerning what came to be referred to as “the Crime of the Week”.

The Albuquerque Police Department was initially skeptical about the value of this new concept but they agreed to cooperate with its implementation. The very first call provided information on an eighteen month old gang-rape which led to the arrest and conviction of the offenders within one year of the call. Very quickly the program proved to be highly effective, as informative calls were increasingly received proffering leads which resulted in the solution of several unsolved crimes, including some that had been previously considered dead-end cases. Soon calls began to filter in from police departments in neighboring communities and states inquiring how the Crime Stoppers program could be implemented in their community. As the program was started in additional communities, word-of-mouth commentary about its effectiveness continued to spread. In response to the then obvious need, a national organizing conference was held in Albuquerque in October 1980. Attended by 225 people, the conference dealt with how to start and administer an independent Crime Stoppers program. The Crime Stoppers reputation has continued to flourish, with articles describing its effectiveness appearing in national publications (i.e.: “How Crime Stoppers Stop Crime”, January 1985 READERS DIGEST).

The growth of Crime Stopper programs has continued, such that there are now more than 500 programs in the United States alone. It has been estimated that for every dollar paid out in Crime Stopper rewards, police recover ten or more times that amount in stolen property and/or narcotics. In addition there have been several unanticipated favorable benefits resulting from the program’s implementation. One has been the frequent solution of multiple unsolved cases stemming from a single call. Another has been the improved three-way relationship between the police department, the citizens they serve, and the media. A third positive benefit has been the occasional call from previous informants who, having learned they can trust the program, provide Crime Stoppers with specific information about crimes that are planned to take place on some future date. In these cases the police are sometimes able to nab the perpetrators even as the event is in the process of occurring. The most notable example of the latter occurred in Houston, Texas when an informant provided advance information about the pending arrival of a narcotics shipment. Thus informed, the police staged a drug bust which resulted in the arrest of the offenders and seizure of drugs having a street value of approximately 23 million dollars.

Crime Stopper programs have been challenged often by the ACLU and others as to legality, but each challenge has been successfully met in the courts. Another hurdle concerning the taxability to the recipient of reward payments was successfully met when the United States Congress passed a law exempting Crime Stopper rewards from taxation.

Organized as a Maryland corporation, MCS By-Laws provide for the organization to be managed by a volunteer Board of Directors consisting of not more than thirty-two area citizens. MCS works with the police departments of Baltimore City and the counties of Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Howard, Harford, and Queen Anne's the latter county having requested admission into the program in January 1989. Now in its twenty seventh year, Metropolitan Baltimore’s Metro Crime Stoppers Mission Statement is as follows: “A volunteer organization actively supporting law enforcement agencies in solving crime in our community”. MCS has four specific goals:

To effectively induce persons to provide information which results in the resolution of unsolved crimes; to be a welcomed ally by law enforcement agencies; to develop and maintain a high public awareness and acceptance of our program; and to always be sufficiently solvent to fulfill our mission.

MCS is recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a 501 (c)(3) corporation, which means that contributions to MCS are deductible on one’s income tax return as a charitable contribution, and amounts thus received by MCS are free of taxation on said income. Since inception, over 6,282 calls have been received from informants on the MCS 24 hour telephone “Hot Line” and over 1,900 felony crimes have been solved, 53% of which have been crimes of violence (homicide, rape and armed robbery). Rewards totaling $476,000 have been authorized and the value of recovered stolen property slightly exceeds $900,000.

Since inception MCS has received no financial support from any governmental agency. Accordingly the Board must seek financial support from businesses, Foundations, civic organizations and individuals who recognize the valuable service being rendered to the community by MCS. The MCS financial records are audited annually by an independent Certified Public Accountant. Although testimonials about the value of the MCS program have been given periodically by the Chief of Police from each of the law enforcement agencies served by MCS, perhaps a statement form a Superintendent of the Maryland State Police best sums up the attitude of all these law enforcement agencies. He commented, “I pledge my agency’s continued support of an organization which has proven its worth repeatedly. Metro Crime Stoppers serves as a shining example of what can be accomplished when law enforcement and citizens work together.”