Crime Stoppers founder impressed with local program, media support

Greg MacAleese, founder of the highly successful citizen-police Crime Stoppers Program, is impressed with the progress of NMI’s Crime Stoppers Program.

“The program here is now well established. It’s been going on here for 17 years and they’ve got an excellent board of directors,” the 59-year-old MacAleese told Saipan Tribune in an interview Thursday at the multi-purpose center in Susupe where he conducted an orientation before law enforcers from different local agencies.

MacAleese also hailed NMI Crime Stoppers coordinator Sgt. Thomas A. Blas Jr. whom he described as “a very good coordinator for the program.”

The Crime Stoppers founder arrived on Saipan Thursday from Guam, where he is set to conduct a two-day training for call takers by next week.

MacAleese noted that the NMI program previously used the local police in answering calls by tipsters. Now, he said, the local program uses a call center in Canada that takes the calls and then pass the information back.

“It creates another layer of anonymity for the tipsters here on Saipan which can be important,” MacAleese pointed out.

He said NMI’s Crime Stoppers is building its own momentum through a lot of hard work by the board of directors.

To further improve the program, he underscored the need to constantly recruit new people to sit on the board.

“The board represents the community, the total community of Saipan. So it is important that we continue to have a broad cross-section of people from the island to be part of the board of directors,” MacAleese stressed.

He also praised Saipan’s media for the tremendous support given to the program.

“I think that what you do is…there is nothing that breeds success like success in Crime Stoppers,” he said.

MacAleese said he believes that, as the program continues to solve major cases and with great cooperation from the federal government, the Drug Enforcement Administration and Federal Bureau of Investigation, “this program is definitely going in the right direction.”

MacAleese is only here for two days. He is going back to Guam Saturday afternoon. He first came to Saipan in 1993 for the program. After Guam, he will fly to the Philippines, Malaysia, then Thailand to also talk about the program.

Before Guam, he came from his hometown Albuquerque, New Mexico. He had just come back from a trip to Canada.

MacAleese said he has been involved in Crime Stoppers for 30 years now.

He left the program back in the mid-’90s when he started a technology company where they developed a new technology for law enforcement and the military.

“But I came back because I love the program and I love the concept of it. It’s great to watch it as it continues to be successful,” he said.

He said Crime Stoppers is the most successful citizen police anti-crime program in history.

“We have solved cases worldwide. We’re on 24 countries right now. We have solved more than 1.1 million major crimes as a result of citizens’ calls to our Crime Stoppers Program around the world,” he said.

MacAleese said that they solve a major case somewhere in the world every 14 minutes and recover a million dollars a day on the average in stolen properties and narcotics through calls from citizens.

In addition, he said, they have paid out about $98 million on rewards.

“It’s just been very, very successful,” he said.

MacAleese said the program gives him the opportunity to meet a lot of people around the world and see how different police departments operate in different countries.

“It reaffirms to me that the public, no matter where you are, is interested in helping police solve crimes. And so it is just a key of reaching out to the public and encouraging them to come forward to help and when you do that effectively through the media, the program will be very successful,” he added.

In 1976, working as a violent crimes detective with the Albuquerque Police Department, MacAleese designed Crime Stoppers after he observed that a lack of public involvement was a major reason for the city’s exceptionally high crime rate.