Police Chief Patrick Nogier hopes to see more use of the Crimestoppers network in Prince Albert.

By Nick Nielsen

no information too small for anonymous tips

Prince Albert has low use of Crime Stoppers: police chief

Oct 4, 2024 | 1:30 PM

Anonymous tips can often be the difference in a crime going unsolved or the police finding their potential culprit, but the frequency of tips in Prince Albert is low compared to other cities of similar size.

The Prince Albert Police Service and Crime Stoppers in Prince Albert are asking the public to start using the anonymous tip service more in hopes to find more leads on crime in the city.

In his first full year as Police Chief in Prince Albert, Patrick Nogier has noticed that tips to Crime Stoppers don’t come in often. In his meetings with both the Crime Stoppers board, the City’s police board, and after going through their strategic plan for the next year; it’s an area they hope to see more engagement in.

“One of the things that we notice is that the city really hasn’t embraced Crime Stoppers to the level that we feel it needs to be embraced to so that we can assist the community. We took a close look at it and we started re-engaging with the Crime Stoppers board and having very candid discussions about where does Crime Stoppers currently sit in Prince Albert, what can we do to promote it, how can we enhance it,” he said.

“That’s what we’re in the midst of right now is trying to get it reinvigorated and making sure that we’ve got people that understand what Crime Stoppers can do for a community, making sure that people are contributing to the Crime Stoppers platform, and then most importantly is getting the information that we need to help us further investigations.”

Healthcare

'It's terrifying': Health-care workers sound alarm at Legislative Building

14h ago

Riderville

Riders Depth being tested in stretch run for playoffs

Oct 03, 2024

Lotto winner

'I feel like a million bucks!': P.A. LOTTO winner carried winning ticket for five months

Oct 03, 2024

The biggest hurdle to get over, according to Nogier, is the potential risk that people may think they are taking by sending in tips to Crime Stoppers. By providing information to Crime Stoppers or to the police, a person might be concerned that the offending party may find out and come back to cause further damages.

Nogier has seen time and time again that the Crime Stoppers program makes it very easy for people to stay anonymous while offering what information they know.

Not only does it allow people to submit their tips to the police without revealing their identity, but it also gets rid of a ton of the process of going through the court system with the information.

“We fully understand that people may be a little apprehensive about providing the police service with information on people that may be close to them with respect to criminal activity or maybe even fear of retaliation if some were to find out that they were the source of the information. That’s why we like that Crime Stoppers program, because it provides an avenue to give information to the police. It reduces the ability or the requirement that they have to go to court and that’s substantial.”

Nogier continued, “That’s why Crime Stoppers works because it’s been tested in that court platform, so we don’t have to reinvent the wheel with respect to how we could potentially get information from a source person, and then you have all the court complications, you have the concealing the person’s identity for their protection of them and their family. That’s why Crime Stoppers works. And that’s why we want to see it being utilized better.”

One addition that has helped a bit has been the RCMP’s Rural Crime Watch Advisory Network, a free to join service where RCMP and city police organizations in Saskatchewan can send text messages or emails to people informing them when police are looking for public assistance in their investigations in selected regions.

While originally intended for smaller communities, the Prince Albert Police Service has joined to send out updates to the public that people can sign up for online, and while Nogier thinks that ability for the police to quickly and directly communicate with the public is useful, they haven’t seen that communication getting returned back to the police.

“We still think it’s being used to the capability that it can provide good information. We need to make sure it’s a better mechanism. We need to make sure that people understand that Crime Stoppers is something that they can trust. We know that there’s various ways to get information. A person can walk into the front door of the police station, they can provide information, they can make a phone call to provide information, they can pull an officer over on the street to provide them with information, but where it gets really useful is when you have the ability for people to provide information with some sense of anonymity involved, and that’s when we think we’ll get the best kind of return on our investment.”

Any information, no matter how small, can be useful to the police in their investigations and they encourage the public to share.

For those who want to submit a tip via Crimestoppers, they can do so over the phone by calling 1-800-222-TIPS (8477), or online in a number of ways. To submit to the Prince Albert Crime Stoppers, visit their website at https://www.pacrimestoppers.ca/, and for the rest of Saskatchewan you can visit https://saskcrimestoppers.com/

–

Nick.nielsen@pattisonmedia.com