University of Saskatchewan, Crime Stoppers join forces
The University of Saskatchewan and Crime Stoppers will soon be working together to identify campus crime suspects and prevent further crimes.
Last week, Saskatoon Crime Stoppers announced it will start posting photos of people suspected of on-campus crimes on its Facebook page, on behalf of campus protective services.
In the first post, a photo of someone who is believed to have been involved in the theft of a case of hot chocolate worth $100 was posted to the organization’s Facebook page.
Saskatoon Police Const. Ryan Ehalt said the university reached out to Crime Stoppers because of its reach and its success. He said most of the messages to students will be delivered on social media, but if an incident is serious enough, or if a person suspected of a crime has made some effort to conceal their identity, an on-campus incident may be featured in a Crimes of the Week video segment.
He said when Crime Stoppers shares that a crime has been solved, it sends a message to people who are thinking about committing a crime, which could be a deterrent.
The university’s associate vice-president of services, Wade Epp, said when a crime happens on campus, protective services turns to staff, faculty and students to identify a suspect through internal means, including through its Identify web page. He said the partnership could help protective services deliver messages to students and staff relating to preventive measures, such as discouraging bike thefts.
While protective services has reached out to Crime Stoppers for help sharing information in the past, Epp said this formalizes how the information is shared and when.
Epp said the advantage of working with Crime Stoppers is that it will help protective services cast its net out farther to gather information.
“And likewise, I think Crime Stoppers is looking to our channels where we can potentially share information with them and some of our campus partners, whether it’s RUH or other entities on campus as well,” he said.