Chicago, Il- Police departments are using Idthisperson.com which offers the public $25.00 gift cards to identify suspects.
Chicago- Several local police departments are hoping a new website can expand their efforts to identify persons of interest. The website, idthisperson.com, offers people $25 gift cards if they can help the police identify people who may have crucial information. Police in Oswego, Yorkville, Aurora, Montgomery and St. Charles have already signed up for the service, which was created by two police officers.
“There’s a lot of tools out there to solve crime, but this is a unique tool that involves law enforcement working with the public,” said Oswego Police Detective Rob Sherwood. “When you actually have a picture of a person of interest, you make it a lot easier to solve that case.”
Police are able to submit photos to the website. Not all the pictures are necessarily suspects in the case, but they are at least people that police believe have more information about the crime.
The public is then able to go onto the site and search for pictures in their area. Each picture has almost no information attached to it and no details about why police are looking for the person. At this point, most are just an image of a person walking out of a store or at a cash register, although police could load photos related to any sort of crime.
Underneath the picture, the public is asked whether they know the person’s name or nickname, where they hang out and any other information that might help police, like what car they drive.
All of the info can be submitted anonymously, although to be eligible for the $25 gift card, the person must enter their e-mail address. Any information submitted to the site is forwarded to the police department that submitted the pictures. If the identification turns out to be correct, and even if the person is not arrested, the member of the public receives a $25 gift card. The person making the identification never has to talk to police to be eligible for the gift card.
Idthisperson website: http://idthisperson.com/
Link:
http://beaconnews.suntimes.com/news/7258621-418/local-cops-hope-site-offering-gift-cards-can-help-find-persons-of-interest.html