South Bend Area Crime Stoppers helped bring 57 criminals to justice so far this year.

The cases solved include the November shooting of a sheepdog during a burglary on South Bend's West Side and the armed robbery of South Bend Banks in November and December.

Crime Stoppers allows people in 13 surrounding counties in Indiana and Michigan to call a special number to give police anonymous information.

"We can actually take information from people, keeping them anonymous the whole time, which means if you're anonymous you're never going to be subpoenaed," said Lt. Cindy Kilgore, who coordinates the South Bend Area Crime Stoppers.

The program was started in 1983 to help get information from people who are reluctant to talk to officers directly.

"The two main reasons for people's reluctance to get involved in police investigations are fear of retribution perhaps for identifying a suspect," said Kilgore. "The second is main reason is apathy, so crime stoppers overcomes that by offering anonymity and by offering a cash incentive to make that call."

Tipsters can receive up to $1000 for information leading to an arrest. The amount varies by case and is determined by the Crime Stoppers board of directors.

Officers have no way of identifying the person calling. The phones do not have caller ID and investigators said they do not want to know who is calling to protect the sanctity of the program.

"When we type up a tip we don't even include a gender in the tip and we instruct that person to keep in touch with us since we have no way of getting in touch with them," said Kilgore.

Just last week police arrested Brett Walker-Humphrey for shooting a sheepdog during a November burglary using information from an anonymous tipster.

"The tipster happened to be watching TV, watching the crime of the week when we featured that as a crime of the week back in November and at some point he came across the information the investigators were looking for and contacted crime stoppers," said Kilgore.

So far in 2010 Crime Stoppers has also recovered $62,330 in property and drugs. The program has also paid $8,100 in reward money, but not everyone who calls with information takes the money.

"About 20-percent of people never call us back for the reward money. Some people tell us right at the beginning, 'that's okay I don't want the reward money, I just want to give this information'," said Kilgore.

The reward money comes from community donations to the program and not taxpayers.

"In all these years of the south bend area crime stoppers program, it has continued to thrive because of concerned citizens who have made donations to the program as well as those who are giving us the crucial information we need," said Kilgore.

If you have information on any felony you can call Crime Stoppers at 574-288-TIPS.