Various Police Departments Open SMS Messaging Links To Encourage Youth To Report Crimes

July 4, 2008 9:06 a.m. EST

Tampa, FL (AHN) - Various police departments are encouraging young Americans to participate in their anti-crime campaign by serving as tipsters to criminal acts or potential criminal offenses they witnessed by encouraging the youth to text these incidents.

The police departments of Boston and Cincinnati blazed the trail in 2007 when they started to accept anonymous text messages of crime incidents or potential felonies. Since then over 100 communities have followed the footsteps of the two departments in battling crime by tapping into technology.

Louisville in Kentucky started a text message link in June. Sgt. Brian Bernardi of the Metro Police Department told the AP, "If somebody hears Johnny is going to bring a gun to school, hopefully they'll text that in."

Since its June launch in Louisville, a number of SMS has been received in Bernardi's computer. Among the messages was a report that a school van was vandalized and there was illegal dumping in a trash bin and in the forest.

The Boston Police, which adopted the text message reporting system in 2007, arrested a New Hampshire murder suspect because of an SMS tip. After one year, the department got 678 text message tips, only slightly lower than the 727 phone tips for the same 12-month period.

Officer Michael Charbonnier, head of the Boston Police Department Crime Stopper unit, recalled that a hearing-impaired man sent an SMS to report a domestic violence incident because he could not call 911.

Among the cities which have added text messages as a method to solve or prevent crimes since January were Tampa, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Indianapolis, New Orleans and Detroit.

Charbonnier added, "It's obvious that the future of communication is texting... You look at these kids today and that's all they're doing. You see five kids standing on the corner, and they're texting instead of having a conversation with each other."