How effective are rewards?

WHO, WHAT, WHY?
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The reward keeps rising

Money totalling £2.5m has been offered for information leading to the safe return of Madeleine McCann, but just how often are they collected?

JK Rowling, Richard Branson, Simon Cowell, Wayne Rooney and Michael Vaughan.

The list of people who have pledged money towards the £2.5m reward for information leading to the safe return of Madeleine McCann is growing by the day.

The lure of money is used in all sorts of situations as an incentive to get people to come forward, from missing cats to the $25m offered for information leading to the capture of Osama Bin Laden.

Fears

But, in the UK, payouts appear to be the exception rather than the rule.

Any individual can offer a reward through police forces in England and often the largest are made in high-profile abduction cases. When Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman went missing in Soham in 2002 a £1m reward was put up by national newspaper.

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The theory behind rewards is about getting people's attention and about keeping big police investigations - such as the Madeleine McCann case - in the public eye, according to the independent charity Crimestoppers.

In many cases offers of rewards are made through the charity and it has set up an international number in relation to Madeleine's disappearance, as no equivalent organisation exists in Portugal. Since the announcement of the reward it has received 350 calls.

It's hard to quantify how successful rewards are, says Dave Cording, director of operations with Crimestoppers. Fewer than 3% offered by the charity are paid out every year but that is because most people don't claim them, not because the information they give is useless.

Cultural differences

"Rewards do work, but in the UK they are not the driving force behind people coming forward with information," he says. "In contrast, the Americans are huge on claiming rewards. I think it's a cultural thing and people in the UK just don't like it when they feel an injustice has been committed."

The psychology behind rewards is largely based around breaking the silence of people with information who know they are at risk if they go to police, says professor of criminology Betsy Stanko.

"Often this is a family member, a friend or a business associate, someone who is close to the person who has committed the crime," she says.

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"This closeness often means a person fears they will be harmed if they speak to police. Rewards are about trying to get the information out of them."

But in some cases rewards are said to have hampered investigations, with police time being diverted to taking evidence from those more interested in the bounty than the truth.

The use of rewards came under particular scrutiny during the first trial over the death of Damilola Taylor. The court case centred on the testimony of a 12-year-old witness, who was discredited after videotapes were shown of her bragging about a £50,000 reward she stood to pocket. The case collapsed when she admitted in court to changing her story.

Of the 350 calls Crimestoppers has received so far about the McCann case, only 64 have been passed on to police.

"The flip side of the system is that a reward can encourage crank calls," says Mr Cording. "But in our experience the golden nugget that can help to solve a crime is often mixed up in them."