There’s no doubt that Crime Stoppers provides value for money and a recent research report confirmed just that.

The national study by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) consultants in March 2015 compared the economic benefit of Crime Stoppers with the running costs, finding that across Australia Crime Stoppers delivers a wide range of benefits for the community at a modest cost.

In fact, Crime Stoppers provides value worth 30 times the cost of providing the service to the public.

Tangible benefits included crime detection activities, especially through the value of drugs seized and property recovered, as well as productivity savings such as specialists receiving contacts from the public and writing intelligence reports for the police.

Intangible benefits are difficult to calculate but are important to consider when measuring the value of Crime Stoppers.

The report notes that some of the intangible benefits generated by Crime Stoppers’ crime detection, crime prevention and promotional activities include:

  • Reduced fear of crime in the community, therefore producing a greater quality of life
  • Improved attitudes towards submitting information anonymously to assist police.

The research also found that amid Australia’s rising problem with illegal substance abuse, the majority of calls Crime Stoppers receives are about drugs. Approximately 75% of drug contacts received relate to the use of cannabis, 15% about amphetamine use and 10% other illegal drugs.

Crime Stoppers WA aims to provide relevant information and helpful tips in the future to inform people about crime prevention.