2013 Year End Report marking the
21st anniversary of the Regional Crime Stoppers program.
Three new Board members along with myself attended the Provincial Crime Stoppers training conference in Vancouver with presentations on Preventing Youth From Joining Gangs, Theft of Power and Metals, the International Flow of Drugs and Weapons from the US Drug Enforcement Administration(DEA) perspective and Human Trafficking to name a few.
The Provincial Crime Stoppers Board is putting together a working plan to relieve all Police personnel from having to answer our Tips Line as their resources have become stretched. The ultimate goal is for every Region in the Province to have a civilian Regional Coordinator similar to the model that we use in our Regional District which has allowed our Crime Stoppers program to grow and remain in the top 6 in BC consistently. Many citizens still believe Crime Stoppers is “part of the Police” as opposed to being “a partner of the Police” so any progress made in this separation and perspective will increase Crime Stoppers effectiveness for all communities. Fundraising continues to be a challenge throughout our area but we remain optimistic that as the economics improve, so too will that.
Our Mugshots, Crime of the Week and more recently the publishing of the Crime Maps for all communities on our Social Media continues to attract more and more attention. We are very fortunate to have a couple of members on the Board who are very adept with Social Media.
Overall, 2013 Tips were down by approximately 5% which is consistent with the Provincial statistics. The “other calls” that are not tips but enquiries about Crime Stoppers were up again this year by approximately 15%. I feel that overall, South Okanagan Similkameen Crime Stoppers had another successful year in gathering information and intelligence on crime in our service area to help the Police keep our communities safe. The Board of Directors and myself would like to thank all of our elected officials, businesses, Police, Media and citizens throughout the South Okanagan Similkameen for their continued support and look forward to another successful year in the battle against crime.
South Okanagan Similkameen Crime Stoppers Society Statistics to December 2013 since inception in January 1992
Tips Received 6413
Tip Follow-ups 2608
Calls received 17,681
Arrests Made 803
Cases Cleared 930
Weapons Recovered 64
Stolen Property Recovered $1,782,555
Drugs Seized $11,543,129
Al Sismey Regional Crime Stoppers Coordinator