Sunday, May 18, 2008

The Tipster Index

Forget the namby-pamby seasonally adjusted and massaged official data about the US economy. Here's the real deal: the tipster index.

Crime Stopper agencies across the US are reporting a sharp rise in tips for reward money, with calls rising by 25%-45% from last year. Tipsters are saying they need the money for food, gas and utility bills. “For this year, everyone that’s called has pretty much been just looking for money,” said Sgt. Lawrence Beller, who answers Crime Stoppers calls at the Sussex County, N.J., sheriff’s office. He said the average payment for a tip that results in an arrest is $400. Rewards across the nation vary from $50 to $1,000.

Sergeant Johnson of Jackson, Tennessee has been a Crime Stoppers coordinator for 15 years, watching crime rates and tips fluctuate. He said, “I’ve never seen an increase like it is now.” Some people are making a regular living out of crime tipping, earning up to $750 per week with repeated calls. The Crime Stopper agencies even advertise their version of the "service economy":

“Crime doesn’t pay but we do,” say the mobile billboards cruising Jacksonville, Fla. A poster in Jackson, Tenn., draws a neat equation: “Ring Ring + Bling Bling = Cha-Ching.” The bling, in this case, is a pair of handcuffs.

Cha-Ching? Cha-Ching? What's next? Children squealing on their parents to buy the latest version of Grand Theft Auto?
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This reminds me of the excellent movie The Lives of Others. It won the best foreign film Oscar in 2006. If you haven't seen it, don't miss it..

19 comments:

  1. Completely off-topic comment..

    As you know I post from time to time hereinto from France. This Sunday morning I am both angry and desperate. It is because of your post.

    Here in Europe we don't have this "tipster service industry" that I just discovered in your last message. Until 10 minutes ago I didn't even know that american people are pushed to snitch (I just found this word in a dictionnary, excuses if it is not adapted) anyone else by publicity and payments.

    Some background. My grand-grand-father had to go to war with the German armies during WW1. After this he hated wars. So he opened his mouth during the nazi regime. He used to say that Hitler should be buried until his neck and a harrow passed on top of his head. He also refused to shout "Heil Hitler" when he visited the mayor (it was a small village) and he obliged my grand-mother to come back from Switzerland with the swiss newspaper (grand-mother and grand-father were peasants just at the border to Switzerland and she sold milk, butter and eggs on the market). Once the mayor told him that if he had not been such an old man in charge of a family (see next par.) he would have been "sent elsewhere". My still living grand-mother also told me that she was frightened because he tried to listen to the BBC radio and once they saw someone run away from under the windows after having listened to what happened in the house.

    So my family surely was not highly appreciated by the regime. At the beginning of 1942 my grand-parents had 3 little children and the 4th one to come, my mother. Normally a man aged 34 with wife and 4 children, even if he had to join the Wehrmacht, was not sent to the east front. But he was sent there and he disappeared in January 1943 near a village name Michaloivka just after the Stalingrad battle. Until now we don't know what happened. And because many soldiers came back from Russian prisons until the end of the 1950's, I can still remember my grand-mother watching down the road well into the 1980's, dreaming to see her husband coming back.

    I think that my grand-father was sent to the Stalingrad area because he was denounced. And I also think that the one who did it was rewarded. As were rewarded all the ones who helped locate judes who by then were outlaws . Maybe not with money but with consideration by the regime.

    You americans did never know such situations in your history. I hope that you will avoid them in the future. But when I read your blog I am quite pessimistic.

    Excuses for this long message, but I am terribly disturbed by what I read this morning.
    .

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  2. Dear Arnould,

    I fully agree with your comment and indignation. As a continental European I also remember my grand parents telling me similar stories that happened during the war or just afterwards. A society that openly encourages delation is, in my humble opinion, going down a slippery slope...

    Kind regards

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  3. Serge and Arnould:

    Contrary to your point(s) is the "Stop Snitchin'" "campaign" that started in the African-American community. Here you have the exact opposite extreme. African-Americans in some communities are being urged (even threatened) to not help the police.

    You can see a 60 Minutes report on it here.

    So there are two sides of that story.

    I think that Hellasious' point was that Americans' finances have become so strained that desperate measures -- including reporting crime for money -- have become necessary to get money for staples such as food and gas.

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  4. Arnould, I think you are being a little immature (not sure of the correct word-- I do not intend to be insulting). Further, I certainly do not understand why you transfer this immaturity into a nationalistic statement about the American character.

    There has been considerable research in the field of psychology/evolutionary psychology on the paradoxes of 'getting ahead', 'telling the truth', 'stealing', 'informing the authorities’ (or snitching as you say-- with its obviously derogatory overtones) and 'the common-public good'. I won't bore you with the details of these studies (Google them yourself for validation of my claim) other than to say Okie's first point is correct and that you are being rather simplistic (should I paint the French as ‘simpletons’? I do not think the French are by the way, I am only making a point).

    Please think about the following question psychologists use in their questionnaires to frame the paradox which seems to disturb you...

    "If you could save the person you most love in all the world by killing another person, would you do it"?

    Just think about it.

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  5. Dear arnould,

    Thank you for sharing your story. I found it completely on-topic, in a broader social context.

    Thai... PLEASE see the movie I recommend. Arnould is not "transferring" - he is warning us. Europe has seen so much backstabbing and snitching in its history..

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  6. Arnould-

    That was a tragic story. When my brother and I would have some petty fight and complain about some ridiculous unfairness my father would calmly say "Worse things have happened to better people". It was his way of teaching us to keep perspective. It seems he had your relatives in mind as the better people.

    But Okielawyer brings up a very valid point. The people being snitched on with the Tipster Line are not being persecuted on beliefs or "thoughtcrimes". These are true physical crimes (including murder). America is a strange place. I think its hard for people from other countries to fathom a place that has lost the small-community social interaction that set out a clear group of consistent ethics.

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  7. Dink: "I think its hard for people from other countries to fathom a place that has lost the small-community social interaction that set out a clear group of consistent ethics."

    That ain't all we lost Dink. The template is set for all of the aforementioned "thought crimes" to be prosecuted.

    We have a president that lies about systematic abduction and torturing of people that are denied any due process. Our Constitution has been trashed by this regime and the road is clear for tyranny.

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  8. Arnould, re-reading my comment, I read a tone in it that is far more insensitive than I ever intended-- which was really closer to Dink's response. I truly am sorry for the loss of your grandfather, even if that did not come across well. Please accept my apologies for any offensiveness in my comment.

    Hell- I will rent it. But I am skeptical that 'warning' is an appropriate term; it implies to me a certain 'avoiding' of the 'snitching' vs. 'the public good' paradox I do not see as EVER avoidable: Arnould's concern is a classic 'boundaries' problem, i.e. 'what are the boundaries of the system you are tying to define (protect,etc...)?

    So in Arnould's instance, the boundaries are the definition of the word 'crime'. In the days of WWII, crime was defined by many Germans as disagreeing with a despotic regime. Yet today crime might be committing financial fraud on grandma's retirement plan(would 'snitching' on such 'crime' be bad?).

    I noticed that some of your readers have commented in the past on how they see people entering the US illegally and working/paying taxes as 'crime'. Yet I think some of your other readers (at least myself), might concede a literal definition of the word crime to illegal immigration, yet deny any 'moral' definition to illegal immigration.

    My reality tells me there is no avoiding from Arnould's warning-- boundary issues are always unresolvable when more than one person is involved.

    It is what it is

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  9. Very soon crime will be defined as saying something bad against the banks. If someone accuses Mozillo, he may end up getting a run on countrywide, which will be banned for the 'greater good'. So, all financial blogwriters will be sent to Texas (our version of Siberia :).

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  10. Yet another example that people on the ground are way ahead of the curve on recognizing that we/they are in in deep trouble.

    I think Arnould's shock at the concept is interesting. Having grown up with these crime stoppers tip lines being normal it would never occur to me that they wouldn't exist. To me they seem like a modern incarnation of the "Wanted" posters of the old west -- or the old west as depicted by Hollywood. Twenty years ago The Simpson's had an episode where Lisa called 1-800-U-SNITCH to report a baby sitter that was on the lam. These things are quintessentially American. And perhaps they are absurd.

    I live in a very low density golf course development (mercifully not gated) and have never seen a police car out here. Since we don't have crime (yet) I suppose I'll have to take to riding a bicycle to pinch pennies. Unless of course I can get a reward for snitching on the neighbors for watering their lawn when it's not their designated day to do so under our city's water scheme. Hmm....they do charge a hefty fine for that, maybe I can get a cut. ;)

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  11. WRT what manoj said about speech crimes, Rep Jane Harmon has introduced a bill that criminalizes rhetorical support of "extremism". We'll have to wait and see how that plays out.

    On the subject of desperation, I clicked through some links and landed on an article about California breaking into peoples' safety-deposit boxes and selling the contents as soon as the time limit had passed without making any attempt to contact the owner even if they were in the phone book or tax rolls.

    Okie,
    CalculatedRisk had a post about people using their HELOCs to pay their mortgages and now they are maxed out and defaulting on both.

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  12. California is inhabited by people, who are either really stupid or lack any sense of morality. If that state ceases to exist, world will be much better.

    Several examples:

    I could not manage to explain anyone here in the bay area, why paying by unaccounted stock options is effectively stealing from the shareholders.

    Two years back, the governor put two proposals on the ballot. One required a small tax increase to pay for highways and the second one proposed a huge bond program for the same. Even the interest part of those bonds were larger than the requested tax hike. Still the second measure passed with large majority and the first one failed. Why cannot anyone make the connection between bonds and taxes?

    The worst of all is to increase the number of casinos around the state to pay for education. Isn't it amazing - promoting gambling among the masses to pay for state education???


    Most of the financial frauds (internet IPO, liar loans) that you have seen in the last 10 years came from California. There must be a reason.

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  13. Marcus-
    "The template is set for all of the aforementioned "thought crimes" to be prosecuted"

    We both wear tin foil hats, but they may differ in size. I don't think Obama or even McCain will allow a tenth of the crap Bush initiated to continue. But if I'm wrong there's a sci-fi book called "The Light of Other Days" that had a method for humans to communicate that couldn't be electronically detected (like Helen Keller basically) :)

    Greenie-
    "There must be a reason"

    Its filled with people.

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  14. Dink,
    If you think McCain is any different than Bush, your tinfoil hat has some short-circuits in the wiring. He has been totally co-opted by the neocons, witness Lieberman leading him around like a poodle.

    The thought of failing to reach the Whitehouse after an idiot like Bush made it twice consumes him. He'll sell his soul to whoever will help him grab what he thinks is his by birthright.

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  15. Dink, The "template" is the laws. We went from confiscation of property without due process, in the "war on drugs" to imprisonment and torture without due process, in the "war on terror."

    Neither one of these "wars" has been substantively defined, yet the Constitution has been subverted in their name.

    The reason for the three (hopefully) counterbalancing branches of government and a constitution is a view of human nature that says "power corrupts" and applies to all people--I don't believe in saints.

    Its no comfort to me the focus has (so far) mostly been on dark-skinned people of a certain religion and not "good" Irish-Catholic terror suspects.

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  16. Yoyomo/Marcus-
    "If you think McCain is any different than Bush, your tinfoil hat has some short-circuits in the wiring"

    Perhaps. But I am fairly confident in a Democrat sweep in November so its a moot point.

    "The reason for the three (hopefully) counterbalancing branches of government and a constitution "

    This two dominant party system we've been caught into has kind of subverted this, IMO. I don't think the states are so united anymore. The blue states are sending $ to the fed who then gives it to the red states (who in turn despise the blue states for being filled elitists and sinners). Obnoxious.

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  17. @ Hell and (regular) posters. Just wanted to let you know how much I enjoy this blog. I would say yes Hell has an agenda which broadly speaking is guided by his underlying humanism. The charts, data you provide to make your point are priceless.
    Every once in a while I imagine how all those bloggers make little changes in their lifes and reach out to other people to encourage them to make little changes in their lifes. I am sure that many concepts discussed on this blog will be mainstream within ten years and that many of the proposed solutions will be implemented. Am I being to optimistic/romantic? I do not think so. "Am Anfang war das Wort", if the word catches you it will change the way you think and eventually the way you act.
    So again many thanks for providing this exellent blog as well as a mostly civilized discussion on the it topics of our time.
    BMH

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  18. Excellent movie "The Lives of Others" indeed. Highly recommend it too.

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