Volunteer crime reporting network Crime Stoppers has said the booming popularity of true crime podcasts has led to growth in the number of anonymous tips provided by the community.

In 2012, reports to Crime Stoppers Australia led to 12,845 charges being laid across the country.

Last year that number had almost doubled to 24,630.

Crime Stoppers Queensland general manager Jonathon Cowley said there was no denying public interest in crime was up thanks to hugely popular crime podcasts like Serial, The Teacher’s Pet and the ABC’s own Unravel and Trace.

“Certainly Crime Stoppers has seen … a growth in interest in crime, which is fantastic for us because it opens people’s eyes to what could be a possibility,” he said.

“It makes [the] community more aware of what could be a crime and what could be information that’s required.

“We are happy to accept any information. That small piece that could help solve a crime.”

Mr Cowley said people should report anything they thought was unusual.

“Anything that sets off our ‘inner detective’ and we’ve all got it; it’s when you just don’t feel right, you look at something.

“It might be a lot of cars going to a house and just staying for a couple of minutes or when you walk around, you might see a house that’s all of a sudden got boarded up windows and things just don’t look right or don’t feel right.

“That’s the time to give us a call.

“You don’t have to know everything about a crime but … you might just know that one little piece of the puzzle that police need to solve a crime.”

How to be a good tipper

Detective Senior Sergeant Chris Lindsay said amateur sleuths educated by an interest in the true crime genre could be helpful to authorities but they needed to be careful.

“It obviously depends on the type of investigation but for say drugs or burglary offences it may just be a simple identification of the offender or saying, ‘They were wearing a red shirt’ that may tip us off in relation to other avenues of inquiry that we can do,” Senior Sergeant Lindsay explained.

“For example, that red shirt might match to CCTV footage that’s found elsewhere in an investigation.”

Community participation in preventing and solving crime is crucial, according to Detective Senior Sergeant Chris Lindsay. Photo: ABC/Alice Roberts

He said detectives did not expect people to be remembering numberplates or memorising dates but simple details could be helpful.

“It’s really difficult to say what people should look out for, but it’s important that people keep an eye our for incidents that occur that are unusual … and this could be from terrorism to drugs and property crime, [it] could be anything.”

Senior Sergeant Lindsay said people should be very careful about taking pictures or videos of people they suspected of committing a crime.

“The nature of the way society is going is very digital … and there’s a tendency to want to photograph and videotape but you’ve got to remember you might be putting yourself at risk.

“The offenders or people involved might see you do that and you don’t really want to put yourself in the position of doing that and risking your own safety.”

He said while the fervour around the true crime genre was interesting, people needed to make sure they did not take things too far and became the perpetrators themselves.

“Obviously if you go into someone’s backyard you are committing the offence of trespassing, for example.

“If you start committing offences to obtain information that is where the line is well and truly overstepped.”

However, he said there was a big role for community members in preventing and reporting crime in the community.

“Obviously if you go into someone’s backyard you are committing the offence of trespassing, for example.

“If you start committing offences to obtain information that is where the line is well and truly overstepped.”

However, he said there was a big role for community members in preventing and reporting crime in the community.

“We can’t solve crime without community involvement … we need to get their involvement.”

Crime Stoppers’ Jonathon Cowley agrees and said the recent reboot of the Dob in a Dealer campaign was a perfect instance of that.

“The community cares about safety and the old ‘You don’t dob on a friend’ is fine in the schoolyard but [when] we look at things like drugs … then it’s not ‘dobbing’ as such.

“We find that local residents do want to give us that information and keep their community safe.”