In an effort to fight crime, the Duke University Police Department has introduced a feature on its web site that makes it easy for students, faculty and the general public to report incidents anonymously. The crime tips feature, which was affixed to the web site as an experiment last fall, is now being promoted on campus by the department's community liaison officers who regularly give presentations on personal safety and crime prevention to students, faculty and employees. Robert Dean of the university police. There are times when cases are cleared only because of public assistance.
Tips are an essential part of law enforcement.
To use the feature, individuals wishing to report crimes or suspicious activities simply access the option on the web site, fill out a form describing the incident and any other relevant information and then click on a button to send the tip electronically. Anonymity is guaranteed, Dean said. The tips, which arrive in the form of e-mail, pass through a routing server that strips the header and all other identifying characteristics from the message. On average, the police force has received between five and 10 tips each month during the trial period of this last year, said Capt. Charles Nordan, one of two detectives who check the e-mail every day.