Taking a Byte out of Crime - with Text Messaging

What is the most mobile and ubiquitous computer in the world? You guessed it: your cell phone.

Perhaps not so slowly, and definitely surely, law enforcement throughout the country are recognizing the truth of this, and are now opening channels for the digital citizen to reach them in need or to report emergencies or crimes observed.

The very first day Boston police began accepting text messaging, a text message tip led to the arrest of a New Hampshire homicide suspect. In Ventura County, California, authorities have apprehended several wanted felons through text and online tips.

"It's the future," says Cmdr. Michael Charbonnier, the Boston Police Department's contact for Crime Stoppers, an international program dedicated to rewarding anonymous tipsters for information leading to an arrest and conviction.

Since the Boston Police Department implemented its text program last year, tips have doubled, with nearly half coming in from text messaging. To date, in 2008, the department has logged 720 phone tips and 698 text-messaging tips.

"Sometimes it's the only info and sometimes it's the piece of the puzzle that leads to the arrest," Charbonnier says. "But it's a reality in policing. Some people just aren't comfortable with calling 9-1-1." The success of the program rests on keeping messengers anonymous.

The trend first took off in Boston after Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis showed up at a shooting and watched as bystanders with cell phones text messaged friends the news.

Since then, at least 70 law-enforcement agencies have added text messaging to their tip lines and 100 others are in the process of adopting a text-messaging system.

For years, the Los Angeles Police Department has received crime tips from anonymous callers nervously hoping to remain so as they whisper their way through intimidating one-on-one Q&As with police tip-takers.

But in a bid to get more young people to come forward with information to help snare bad guys, the LAPD may soon join the growing number of law-enforcement agencies that are encouraging people to text message tips via cell phones.

"The younger generation is very text savvy," says Lt. Mathew St. Pierre, head of the LAPD's investigative analysis section.

St. Pierre, whose unit looks at what technologies are best suited for the Police Department, said it's considering setting up a text and online tip service, but also says there are no immediate plans to do so.

However, last year, the LAPD began working with a company to develop a 9-1-1 system that would accept cell-phone pictures from witnesses.

Meanwhile, while Los Angeles is playing catch-up, dozens of police agencies from Boston to San Diego are taking anonymous tips online and via text messages.

San Diego is betting on text messaging to drive up tips beginning in September. By the time first school bell rings, 150,000 high school and middle school students will own school ID cards that instruct them to text CRIMES to report everything from drug pushers to iPod thieves.

"We are hoping they are more comfortable texting than go through the whole dialogue on the phone interacting with a tip-taker," says San Diego police Officer James Johnson.

San Diego County launched a text and a similar web version of the program in April and is already is seeing 10-15% of all tips come in over the Internet. Without advertising.

"It's been the surprise of the electronic boom for us," he said. "For whatever reason, people are more comfortable getting on the computer and sending us information over the web."

And the same no doubt holds true for your cell phone.