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Photo by Travis Pratt
Tom Ward, an intern with Frederick City Police, helped to develop a crime stoppers program. |
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Tom Ward spent one semester as an education major at Mount St. Mary's University. He planned to be a history teacher. But on his last day of observing a classroom, he wasn't happy with the career he had chosen. As he walked to his vehicle in the school's parking lot, he saw two police cruisers racing to a call. He decided to look into criminal justice and did a ride along with an officer in his hometown of Hershey, Pa. "I've been hooked since," he said. Ward, 20, changed his major and did an internship with the Frederick Police Department over the summer. "I absolutely loved the internship," he said. "It sealed the deal that this is definitely for me." The junior was asked to help Lt. Clark Pennington set up a program called Crime Stoppers. It was his sole assignment during his internship. The program aims to reward people who provide anonymous tips to the agency that lead to arrests. The reward would vary with the severity of reported crimes, and each tip would be assigned a number. Callers can call back later to see if their tips led to rewards. "I believe the Crime Stoppers program can be a wonderful addition to our crime fighting strategy and would allow us to provide some monetary reward for information into serious crimes," Pennington said. The program is in its developmental stages, and the department continues to work on it, Pennington said. "I really enjoyed doing it," Ward said. His favorite part was getting to call jurisdictions across the country to discuss their Crime Stoppers programs. Ward enjoys the camaraderie of working in a police agency and likes that his days are not set in a curriculum. "It is always constantly changing," he said.
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