CRIME Stop has launched a new online tipping portal that will allow people to anonymously lodge information to help police with their crime-fighting efforts.

Speaking to reporters and editors at this week’s Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange, Crime Stop Manager Prudence Gentles explained the new addition to their suite of crime-reporting tools is an adoption of a more tech-savvy solution expected to encourage younger persons to report crimes.

“We are very big on social media and yesterday (Sunday) we launched our new online reporting system. It’s called www.311tips.com. It’s not an app because we believe that apps in our situation can be somewhat dangerous if you have an app on your phone that says Crime Stop. Because of the informer culture that we have, we thought how can we do it where we can get information anonymously but still allow the public to give us information,” Gentles announced.

“As a public evolves, we need to evolve as well. We’re not the same people. Twenty-nine years ago people just watch TV and listened to radio. There was no social media, there was no Internet. Crime Stop then was not as relevant [as it is] today. So we have had to evolve into what we are today.”

“… So it’s really to encourage the youth of today to start taking interest in fighting crime. The youth do not watched TV, they don’t read newspapers, unless it’s online. They hardly listen to radio either. So we have to try to encourage them to be the next generation of crime solvers in Jamaica. They know so much. The youth of today are very astute; they know a lot of the criminals. They know a lot where it happens, and we need them to be a part of the solution,” Gentles said.

Major General Robert Neish, a past chairman for Crime Stop, explained that a key feature of the new tool is to give added protection for persons lodgging information to the website.

“You can put information on that website, typing in anything that you want. A number is given back to you. You are asked to make a note of the number. Don’t leave it in the phone, because everything that you have typed on the website is going to be deleted, and that is to protect you so that if your phone gets grabbed there is no message there of you talking to Crime Stop. We are very excited about this new opportunity to pass information,” General Neish said.

Director of Crime Stop Brian Schmidt further explained, “It [the number] allows us to identify the tip with the information. We refer to the person as the tipster. So we have no idea who you are, but we are able to take the information and put it together.”

“What we do is allow the public anonymous access to give tips, which is very important because there is a substantial degree of mistrust of the police where confidentiality is concerned. So what is important, too, is the new ways that Crime Stop is allowing the public to access us by way of technology.”

“And so what makes us very relevant and important is that the public has an avenue where they can report crime and give tips,” Schmidt concluded.

In a collaborative effort with students from the University of Technology (UTech), Gentles explained that they were able to come up with a leak-safe solution that will protect the identity of persons who use the portal.

“For the past two years, we have been working on different methods, and we finally came up with this website. It’s a portal for information to be put on. You can upload videos and pictures and it remains anonymous. You send in a tip, you get a number which is just for you alone.

“It’s just like any other tip that we get. Once we get the information, it is then passed on to whichever police that we feel is the correct police to pass it on to. The number is your personal number that is your identity. There is a unique number that is given that becomes your identity,” Gentles said. She explained that there is no back-and-forth between the person providing the information and Crime Stop, once the tip is placed on the site.

“We can’t thank UTech enough; they have done it free of cost for us and we hope that in the next couple of weeks, we will be able to get this out to the public so they can start using it,” Gentles added.