Crime Stoppers of Wellington County has launched a new website that will accept web tips to engage the county’s technology-savvy people.
Officials are hoping to get criminals “caught in the web.”
In order to stay on the cutting edge of technology and better its communication, the organization’s new website will highlight the crime fighting program. Located at the same address as the program’s previous site of www.crimestoppers-wellington.com, the new site not only contains current Crime of the Week articles, unsolved cases and educational material about the program, but it also now features web tips.
The group is now capable of accepting anonymous web tips. The system enables users to email tips through a secure and anonymous system.
"Over the past 20 years, Crime Stoppers of Wellington County has assisted the Ontario Provincial Police and the Guelph City Police in solving more than 2,000 cases, and recovering over $26.2-million in stolen property and illicit drugs," said Program Coordinator Jennifer Smith.
She added, “Crime Stoppers and local police services have forged a partnership through the vigilance of the general public in reporting suspicious behaviour and crime in their neighbourhoods through the Crime Stoppers hotline 1-800-222-TIPS (8477). Now those reports can be made on-line.”
Crime Stoppers is expecting the new website to become a key method in engaging youth to the issues of crime that they face in their communities, and encourage them to report crime through web tips.
“The majority of our technology-savvy youth population spend hours on-line,” said Smith. “For many of them, the most direct form of communication is via a computer keyboard.
“For this reason, the addition of the interactive website to our highly-successful hotline is viewed as an extension of the media and processes which many of our community are already comfortable with. Importantly, with on-line reporting, people still remain anonymous.”
One benefit the new website offers is persons who provide Crime Stopper with information can log on at a later time and check the status of an investigation for which they have provided information. That provides tangible evidence that every bit of information the organization received helps in the fight against crime.
For more information, to check out the new website, or to report about a crime, visit www.crimestoppers-wellington.com.
