nazi germany 1940, USSR 1950 or phoenix arizona 2005??? Original Article Who's the school snitch? Alertrecall.com Judi Villa The Arizona Republic Oct. 4, 2005 12:00 AM It's the classic moral dilemma: To tell or not to tell. Spill the beans and you risk being labeled a snitch. Keep the secret and something bad could happen to someone else. What do you do? Phoenix police Officer Cecil Jackson thinks he has hit on the answer: a new Web site where anyone can report criminal activity anonymously. Aimed primarily at high school students as a way to keep campuses safe, the Web site, www.alertrecall.com, is believed to be the first in the country to capitalize on the popularity of e-mailing and text messaging to report crime. Jackson said kids usually know what's happening on campus and are inclined to tell, "but they don't want others to know they're telling." "When you've got 1,600 kids and you have the Web site, you don't know who's telling," he said. The Web site came online at the end of March, and within two days, a tip led to the arrest of a 17-year-old boy in the shooting of another teen. Since then, word of the site has been trickling across the state, and more than 60,000 e-mails have come in about drug activity, gang fights, shootings, stabbings, sexual assaults and thefts both on campus and in students' neighborhoods. More than 1 million students enrolled in Arizona schools potentially could use the Web site. Parents also are being encouraged to log on, and the goal is to pass the word to the 18.8 million high school students across the country by 2007. The non-profit Web site is funded by Jackson and a longtime friend as well as by donations. Jackson is seeking grants to keep it going. Messages go to a response center, where they are prioritized and disseminated round-the-clock by a staff of police officers and educators. "You tell us what it is and where it is, and we'll take it from there," Jackson said. Police long ago recognized the importance of anonymous hotlines in solving crimes, and these days, people dial those numbers to quietly name murder suspects and rapists and report everything from prostitution and graffiti to traffic complaints. The new Web site takes that success a step further, offering wireless access and targeting students who are likely to be more comfortable with computers and cellphones. Text messaging was added about a month ago. Experts say if you want students to report criminal activity or even bullying, it's imperative to provide them an option to do so anonymously. "It's that feeling of safety. In most schools where there are high levels of bullying or harassment, there is a level of fear," said Ruby Alvarado, a senior program coordinator at the Arizona Prevention Resource Center, which is part of Arizona State University. "It empowers those students to still tell someone what's going on without that fear of repercussion. "If somebody sees you walking into the principal's office and an hour later somebody is getting pulled out of class, on most campuses, it's pretty easy to put two and two together." Damon Alexander, 17, a senior at Washington High School, said being labeled a snitch is one of the worst things that can happen. "You get excluded and people want to fight you," Alexander said. "You become a snitch and nobody likes you anymore. That's the Number 1 rule in high school. You don't do it." Senior Kayla Cummings, 17, said high school is "so judgmental" students have to watch everything they do. "Nobody wants to be the rat," Cummings said. With the new Web site, "you're watching out for yourself, but you're still able to tell the truth and get that off your chest," she said. "That would be a really hard thing to deal with if something did happen and you didn't tell somebody." Although murders at schools are rare, 71 percent of the nation's public schools experienced one or more violent incidents on campus from 1992 to 2000, according to a study, "Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2004," by the National Center for Education Statistics. In 2002, more than 1.7 million non-fatal crimes were committed against students ages 12 to 18 at school. Statewide, in the 2005 school year, there were 10,506 incidents on school grounds that required the intervention of local, state or federal law enforcement officials, according to the Arizona Department of Education. "If we start sharing information, we can solve a lot of these things or even stop them," Jackson said. At Washington High School, where www.alertrecall.com first launched, Assistant Principal Matt Belden said tips have helped ferret out drug issues and even stopped some fights by giving officials warning to "put out the fire before something happens." "It's a piece of making our campus safer," Belden said. "The kids feel it's a safe place they can go. No one's seeing them walk into an office. It's something they can do at home on their computer or in class, and nobody knows." That is important to students like Washington High senior Rachel Mester. . "It's better for us," the 17-year-old said. "You could do the right thing and not have people thinking you're snitching on them."