The price is right? Should students be paid to turn in kids who break the rules?

Need some extra cash? If you go to one of an estimated 2,000 schools across the country, all you need to do is keep your eyes and ears open for kids up to no good. Those schools are paying students to tip off school administrators about kids who break the rules.

Rewards vary, but at schools in Houston County, Ga., which participates in a federally funded program called Student CrimeStoppers, students can receive $500 for alerting officials about kids who bring firearms to school. Tips involving vandalism or drugs can fetch $100.

Posters and banners blazoned with a toll-free tip line decorate Houston County schools. Students can call the number anonymously and receive an identification number so they can later check the status of their reports.

The Houston County school board instituted the program last spring. So far so good, say school officials. A recent student tip led to arrests in the case of more than $30,000 worth of stolen computer equipment at Houston County High School.

Opponents of such programs, however, say teen tip lines come at too high a price, turning kids into tattletales for money.

Some Smell a Rat

Kids don't need money to do the fight thing, say critics. "If someone brings a gun to school ... no one has to pay me to let the teachers know," said student Katie Burns after her Georgia high school instituted a cash-for-tips program last year.

An editorial in The San Diego Union-Tribune argues that such programs send kids the wrong message. "What kind of lessons are you instilling when you teach [students] to see their classmates as money-making opportunities?"

Bruce Marlowe, a psychology professor at Roger Williams University in Bristol, R.I., worries tips programs could create distrust among students. "There are very few things that I can think of that would be more effective at destroying that sense of community," he told reporters.

Safety First

Tip lines are all about safety, says Jeff Cutaio, a resource officer at Bellview Middle School in Pensacola, Fla. He encourages kids at his school to participate in the CrimeStoppers program. "It's their school. Do they want it to be filled with drugs, weapons, and criminal activity, or do they want to feel safe at school?"

Chelsea Akamine, a student at Mililani High School in Hawaii, supports the tips program at her school. "When it comes to theft and graffiti it has really helped," she wrote in her school newspaper. "People are cleaning it up and it's been reported. Students are taking initiative."

That's because money talks, says Steven Huffstetler, principal of Cherryville High School in North Carolina. Last year, his school gave out more than $1,000 in rewards for tips. "For $100, [students] will turn their mothers in," he told USA Today.

Make it count! Take part in an instant CE poll on this news debate. Go to www.weeklyreader.com/ce

Get Talking

Ask students: If you witnessed a fellow student committing a crime, such as school vandalism or drug abuse, would you tell a teacher or school official? Why or why not? Would a financial reward make you more likely to turn someone in?

Notes Behind the News

The CrimeStoppers concept started in Albuquerque, N.M., in 1976. A teen was shot during a robbery, in a well-traveled, well-lit area of town on a busy Friday night. Weeks of investigation turned up no clues, and no one who saw the incident offered information or assistance.

Detectives decided there were two main reasons why no one offered assistance on this case--either people feared being harmed by the culprits or they just did not care or want to get involved. Detectives decided to solve those problems by offering witnesses anonymity and cash rewards.

However, the detectives could not offer rewards for anonymous tips, so they needed a community board that could raise money and pay rewards. The community stepped up to the plate in masses.

Volunteers spread a detailed account of the shooting using the media. They also publicized the fact that witnesses could remain anonymous and would receive a reward for successful information. The first CrimeStoppers reenactment resulted in a case-solving tip the very next day in the shooting case.

Word about CrimeStoppers's success spread quickly. Similar programs popped up nationwide. In 1982, Canadian cities followed suit. Two years later, CrimeStoppers International was born.

In CrimeStoppers programs worldwide, 97 percent of the cases leading to an arrest due to tipster information result in a conviction. There have been no known cases of retaliation against anonymous callers.

Sometimes suspects voluntarily give themselves up to the authorities after being featured on a CrimeStoppers program.

CrimeStoppers has grown from one program in 1976, to more than 1,000 programs in 15 countries today.

Since CrimeStoppers started, the programs have cleared more than 560,500 cases, helped in 110,300 arrests, recovered $993 million worth of stolen property, and helped confiscate an estimated $2.54 billion in illegal narcotics worldwide.