Speak up if you see something suspicious

A new CrimeStoppers campaign is urging community members to trust their intincts and report crime.

On national CrimeStoppers day last week, CrimeStoppers Victoria chief executive officer Stella Smith urged community members to play a part in building a safer community.

The them for this year’s campaign is “Trust your Gut,” which encourages community members to speak about incidents they think are suspicious.

A CrimeStoppers independent national survey revealed one in five Australians turn a blind eye to unsolved crime and suspicious activity rather than speaking out.

The survey also showed one in three respondents would prefer to share information with family or friends rather than authorities. While more than half of respondents said they were prepared to speak up, 79 per cent said they were held back because of personal concerns – primarily because they didn’t want to get involved or were concerned for their own safety and feared repercussions.

Ms Smith said the research found a number of respondents second-guessed themselves before picking up the phone or going online to make contact, even though all types of crime information was welcomed.

“Of those people who said they weren’t prepared to speak up, we found 65 per cent thought what they knew wasn’t worth sharing, 36 per cent believed the crime information wasn’t serious enough to share, and 19 per cent were held back because they didn’t know if something was actually illegal or not,” Ms Smith said.

“We want people to know that even the most insignificant piece of information might be all it takes for police to solve a crime, and we welcome information about every type of crime, no matter how big or small.

“It may be an overheard conversation, odd neighbourhood comings or goings, or something that just doesn’t feel right – and that’s the very time that people should listen to their instinct and share what they know with Crime Stoppers without having to worry about getting further involved or going to court,” she said.

In Australia, someone contacts CrimeStoppers every two minutes to share information about an array of unsolved crimes and suspicious activity that is then passed to police and leads to an average of 100 apprehensions every week across the nation for a range of crimes.