Crime Stoppers Global Solutions (CSGS), the international arm of the many Crime Stoppers organizations here in the U.S., began programmatic work in Serbia on October 16.
“Crime Stoppers Global Solutions has been active in Eastern Europe for quite some time and we are expanding our reach to better serve the public in that region of the world,” says John Lamb, board chair of CSGS and former chair of Crime Stoppers USA. “Currently our focus has been in Moldova, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.”
According to Lamb, “The human trafficking problem has been a huge issue and has implications all over Europe as well as the United States. We are working with other organizations as well as government entities in the aforementioned areas. And offering the public a way to make an anonymous tip about crime in these areas is being well received.”
“Crime Stoppers Global Solutions in Serbia and CSGS elsewhere around the world helps connect the dots in terms of the very actionable intelligence collection that we use here at the Richland County Sheriff’s Department as do our fellow local partners, as do our state, national, and international partners,” says Richland County (S.C.) Sheriff Lott, who was unanimously elected to the board in July. “What CSGS is doing is vital work benefitting all.”
CSGS Board member Justin Insalaco, a retired New Jersey police officer, agrees. “This is part of our increasing CSGS’s footprint in Eastern Europe as well as throughout the United States and the rest of the world,” said “It’s necessary because everything is connected worldwide.”
According to Insalaco, “As our local and state-level law enforcement organizations operate, many disparate crime-stoppers organizations exist. What we are trying to achieve at a large scale is a collaborative model where Crime Stoppers no longer assists after a crime has been committed, but utilizes the anonymized data being collected through crime tipping and enriching it with data like publicly available data, regularly referred to as OSINT, or Open Source Intelligence, and ADINT, or Advertising Intelligence.”
Utilizing various technology platforms both at home and abroad, CSGS is able to provide actionable intelligence to local law enforcement agencies before community violence or crimes occur and also works with local partners (i.e. community violence intervention groups) to provide a clear working picture of where to effectively and efficiently deploy preventative resources.
“Community relations are key,” adds Lott whose law enforcement and intelligence collection platform has long been built on community outreach. “Our constant work and information sharing at the local level for instance has enabled us to far-more effectively combat crime — everything from gang activity to drug and human trafficking to the threat of international terrorism — and to ensure that our communities are as safe as we can make them and then some. Expanding this community relations model from state to state and beyond our national borders serves us all.”
Insalaco says that having experienced law enforcement professionals like Sheriff Lott within the CSGS organization, specifically as an executive advisor serving on the board, helps CSGS address the “fine line” of protecting and respecting privacy while gathering and producing the best intelligence possible.”
“Sheriff Lott has developed and proven at the local level — and in his work with foreign law enforcement agencies — the best methods of collecting information to be processed into finished intelligence,” says Insalaco. “He has deep operational experience which is invaluable to us.”
CSGS combats transnational crime and mitigates threats to national and international security with focuses on combating international terrorism, human trafficking, weapons trafficking, drug smuggling, illicit trade, cybercrime, bank fraud and money laundering.
In the near three-decades since Lott was first elected to the office of sheriff, his near-1,000-employee Richland County Sheriff’s Department (RCSD) has today earned a reputation both nationally and internationally as one of America’s premier law enforcement agencies. As such in 2010, Lott traveled to Erbil, Iraq at the invitation of the Iraqi government to help that war-torn country establish its first-ever female police academy.
RCSD continues its strong relationship and an officer exchange program with Iraq, as it does with other foreign law enforcement agencies and U.S. military forces domestically.
“Having developed the team of professional law enforcement leaders like we have including our recent addition of Sheriff Lott on the CSGS board of directors will assist us in getting the word out to those within the various law enforcement communities and in Washington D.C.,” Lamb says.
“The values of Police2Peace — effective, empathetic, and just policing — align perfectly with CSGS’ efforts to expand in Eastern Europe and beyond to begin combating transnational crime globally, as exemplified by Sheriff Lott and the Richland County Sheriff’s Department, the first to embrace these principles,” says CSGS Boardmember Lisa Broderick, founder and executive director of Police2Peace.
Sheriff Lott, who was first elected to office in 1996, is up for reelection in November.
For more information about Crime Stoppers Global Solutions, visit https://thecsgs.org/.
