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Local Bounties
One benefit of the economic downturn is that the number of people hoping to earn a reward by calling the police with a tip has increased, especially in regions with a lot of home foreclosures.
For tips that bring results, programs in most places pay $50 to $1,000, with some jurisdictions giving bonuses for help solving the most serious crimes, or an extra “gun bounty” if a weapon is recovered...
“We have people out there that, realistically, this could be their job,” said Sgt. Zachary Self, who answers Crime Stoppers calls for the Macon Police Department.
The success of these local programs suggests similar international programs could also work.
Posted by Alex Tabarrok on May 18, 2008 at 09:49 AM in Economics | Permalink
Comments
Personally, I'm not the snitch I don't go to the cops to get rich; I go to the block and pitch.
I go with the glock and click, I go with the pop I'm sick.
/just like Jay-Z
Posted by: Jonathan Hohensee at May 18, 2008 10:13:42 AM
I'd feel a lot better about this if drug "crimes" didn't count.
It's nice to think that more rapists, burglars, and batterers are getting caught by this. But pretty disturbing once you realize that many (most?) of the crimes reported on hot lines like these are drug offenses. At some point these hot lines start sounding like something out of East Germany circa 1983.
Posted by: Mercutio.Mont at May 18, 2008 11:23:12 AM
Probably also an increase in fraudulent reports. If we didn't know so much about the number of false convictions based on "eyewitness" testimony, I'd feel more comfortable.
Posted by: Andrew Edwards at May 18, 2008 12:05:27 PM
End the prohibition of acts between consenting adults and you might find that contempt for the law drops dramatically in high crime areas and you might not need to pay people at all to report crimes.
Posted by: happyjuggler0 at May 18, 2008 3:54:22 PM
There's an old Latin word for such people: delatores. To say the least, it doesn't have positive connatations (1, 2)!
Posted by: Loldemort at May 19, 2008 2:08:08 PM
We might wish that rewards, even large rewards, worked better in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Posted by: Larry at May 19, 2008 2:26:39 PM
