Chicago police to offer bounty for crooks with guns

[SecularMotion]

Crooks could start ratting on other crooks anonymously for cash in a program the Chicago Police Department plans to launch in the next few months to take guns off the street.

Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said similar programs were in place when he was the police chief in Newark, N.J., and the head of operations for the New York Police Department.

“The result is that we got a lot of guns from people who were carrying guns illegally,” he said.

The program, called Gunstoppers, will allow people to make anonymous telephone calls to the police about people who have guns. The tipsters will receive a partial code from the police.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/crime/15694982-418/chicago-police-to-offer-bounty-for-crooks-with-guns.html

[safeinOhio]

1. Sounds like a better use of dollars than

buy back programs.

[ileus]

2. issuing incarceration vouchers for their next visit?

I don't know how it'll work but as long as it gets illegal guns off the street and into hands of lawful owners it sounds like a great idea.

[Atypical Liberal]

3. Rather than "inform on your gun owning neighbor"...

...how about just harsher prison sentences for, you know, criminals they catch who committed crimes while carrying guns?

[petronius]

8. It does seem like there's some potential for abuse here - the crook/criminal

attribute disappears as the article progresses - so I hope there's something built in to prevent harassment reports of legal owners (or perhaps some consideration on whether that was a problem in Newark and other places). More importantly, of course, Chicago needs to modify its treatment of legitimate owners at the same time it focuses on crooks.

But that said, a tip-line like this is a good idea in principle: turn criminals against one another, create a little FUD in the criminal community, and retain the ability to prosecute those criminals with guns (unlike at buy-backs)...

[GreenStormCloud]

4. Sounds like a good idea. N/T

[holdencaufield]

5. Offering a bounty ...

... on criminals with guns isn't a new or particularly original idea (see exhibit A)



However -- it is a particularly effective one and one I didn't think Chicago politicians had the stones to try.

[Remmah2]

6. Dead or Alive is a good start.

It'd be a little messy at first but in the long run things would get better.

[holdencaufield]

7. But ... goes the refrain ...

... gang members are just misunderstood kids who are reacting to economic injustice ...

[Eleanors38]

9. Does have a barrel house piano sound, doesn't it? nt