“Wanted” posters on TV westerns offered rewards for handing someone over to law enforcement. More recently, rewards are less about bounty hunting and more about persuading people to provide information that can help solve a crime—representing an attempt to use money to overcome fear and apathy, NPR reports. Chicago priest Michael Pfleger and a support group of parents of murdered children have had some success, paying out rewards in nearly 30 Chicago cases after arrests were made and police verified the information was useful. “I’ve had people, three years after a murder, come with the reward flyer crumpled up that they’ve kept all that time and they say, ‘I’ll talk’,” Pfleger says.
Law enforcement agencies have a long history of offering rewards in an effort to solve crimes. The FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted” list has been running since 1950, when the agency first teamed up with a news wire service to publicize the toughest criminals it was trying to capture. The FBI now offers up to $100,000 for information leading to a direct arrest of anyone on that list. In the 1970s, Crime Stoppers started letting people call in anonymous tips and offering rewards up to $1,000 funded by public, private and corporate donations. Crime Stoppers USA chairwoman Barbara Bergin says the prospect of higher rewards for cases that receive more publicity may increase the number of tips or calls. “Nationally we are seeing programs that are paying out as little as 15 to 20 percent of their available rewards,” Bergin says. “I think the highest that you’ll see … is somewhere around 60 to 70 percent of their rewards get collected.” The measure of success, Bergin says, is not how many rewards are paid out, but how many cases are closed, arrests made and crimes prevented because of tips that come in from Crime Stoppers.