Neighborhood Watch to Lower Your Crime Rate

The neighborhood watch anti-crime program has become quite popular, as citizens try to band together with law enforcement to provide extra "eyes on the street." "Eyes on the street" in this instance simply means that people are consciously watching for unusual events on the block.

I'd much rather see these programs, also called crime watch sometimes, than the surveillance cameras, which are a substitute, but one without additional social benefits.

And Mom's usually working now, and there are fewer and fewer front porch gatherings or over the back fence chats.

However, crime is on the radar screen in cities, suburbs, small cities and towns, and rural areas. Law enforcement officials don’t have the resources to be everywhere, and if they did, we’d probably complain. So these citizen groups came into being as a way of educating citizens about looking out for the atypical and gathering information when a crime does occur.

If you want to organize a neighborhood watch program on your block or in your entire neighborhood, your local law enforcement officials probably will be very happy to assist you and provide you with resources.

In the unlikely event that they are overworked or a little cool to the idea, you can provide the information you need for yourself. Check out the manual of the National Sheriff’s Association or the information and signs for sale at the National Neighborhood Watch Institute.

Deciding on a Neighborhood Watch

As a neighborhood leader and participant, there are pluses and minuses to a crime-oriented program on my block. The negatives are that you telegraph to the world that probably you've had a burglary, and that some people may object to the occasionally too gung-ho enthusiasm of a police department for this sort of activity. A few people will feel that rather than being crime watchers, you’re becoming vigilantes.

A second point to keep in mind is that you may want to structure the neighborhood watch program and modify it a bit from the way your police department or sheriff’s office presents it. Try to combine the neighborhood watch with a more general appreciation of why you might be facing a burglary or other crime situation.

A broader community organization can provide many more valuable functions and also absorb neighborhood watch as one of its activities. Some groups have started to take a broader view of things and have begun holding events such as clean-ups, but I think you should consider the broader organization first and incorporate neighborhood watch as a major activity.

How the Neighborhood Watch Program works

Neighborhood watch is best conceived of as a cooperative effort between law enforcement and citizens. The data show that this cooperative approach works, especially in reducing crimes such as burglaries or home invasions.

The program itself usually consists of the following elements:

1. Training, which may include visits from and talks by law enforcement officers. Written materials also may be dispersed. Likely topics will be keeping all doors and windows locked and valuables discreetly out of sight. Other subjects could be telephone security, vacation and seasonal issues, and so forth.

2. Home safety inspections, in which vulnerabilities that burglars might exploit are pointed out.

3. Group purchases, or certainly encouragement of individual purchases, of better locks, window pins, alarm systems, or outdoor lighting, or programs of replacing ordinary basement windows with glass block windows.

4. Organizing neighbors checking on each other, especially when they are planning to be out of town or have unusual activity in the house. If, for example, you do a house exchange or you authorize a repairman to enter your home with a key, your neighbors should be aware of that fact.

5. Organizing a neighborhood telephone tree so that suspicious activity and actual burglaries can be reported to one another, as well as to the police. Or more likely these days, it’s an e-mail blast.

6. Usually the block obtains a neighborhood watch sign, designed in itself to be a deterrent.

7. Other activities can include meetings, systems of keeping track of the comings and goings of the children, or pre-determining distress signals. Operation Identification programs are very common in the groups; possessions are etched with an identifying number so they can be returned to you if stolen and then recovered.

8. Triad, a program on preventing older adults from being crime victims; Safehouses for Children, a window sticker identification program showing where a child in trouble could go; and Crimestoppers, an anonymous tip program, also are connected with Neighborhood Watch. "Block parenting," where someone is looking out for all the children as they go to or return from school, also is popular. A measure of supervision for latchkey kids prevents all sorts of problems.

9. Some organizations also sponsor citizen crime patrols where citizens may engage in a regular route at a particular time to detect unusual activity. Larger programs may have active victim assistance programs, for which they need to raise money.

How to Start a Crime Watch Group

Usually you’ll want to form a planning committee. If someone on the block recently has been the victim of a burglary, it won’t be hard to recruit him/her/them. After you have three or four of you in agreement, approach your local law enforcement to see what assistance they offer.

Even if law enforcement is extremely helpful and organized, try not to let your hand off the steering wheel entirely. You should make the first contact with the neighbors yourselves.

Determine what geographic area is to be covered, and invite everyone to a first meeting. Especially in a smaller town give law enforcement plenty of notice. Deliver flyers or letters to each residence advertising the first meeting.

If people don’t participate at first, keep trying to get them involved. After all, the success of your group may depend on what that particular uninvolved person sees.

From this point on, running a watch meeting is pretty much like any other meeting, except that the law enforcement personnel attending are likely to be somewhat dominant. Let that happen; they have a lot of expertise and will train you on the do’s and don’ts of preventing burglaries. They will provide lists of what to observe and record when you see a crime or a suspicious activity, and the security of having those lists will help you become a better witness if that day happens.

Usually there will be a watch coordinator, and block captains will be recruited for each block, if you have a neighborhood-wide group. But keep in mind that your particular block by itself can be a watch community as well.

See also other tips about how to start a community organization.

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