Benefits Of Neighborhood Watch

Executive Summary

When people no longer feel safe in their neighborhood and want to make a difference developing a neighborhood watch is a good way to make people feel safe again. Neighborhood Watch is one of the most popular community crime prevention programs in the United States. When a person thinks of the word home, safety and security should be the first things that come to mind. A neighborhood watch can create that piece of mind for everybody in the community. However, if the crime rate is low the urgency for an active watch might be unnecessary.

There is an abundant amount of information in this proposal about how having a neighborhood watch can be effective in any type of neighborhood and what type is good for your community. Neighborhood

“Neighborhood Watch programs became popular in the 1970s and 1980s; by 2000, roughly 40% of the U.S. residential population was covered by such citizen crime-watching programs. These neighborhood associations typically involve recruiting residents to participate in community meetings and various surveillance tasks around properties and common areas; a block captain and coordinator may take leadership roles and serve as liaisons to the local police” (Whibey, 2012). Neighborhood watch empowers everyday citizens to take charge of their life and the safety of their community to become active by fighting against crime and community issues. Neighborhood watches are not only responsible for the safety of their community but cleaning up the disorder as well, so when there is an issue of needing to clean up the neighborhood of trash or graffiti, this is the group that can take charge of getting that fixed or deterring it from happening.

There can many different types of neighborhood watch programs, it all depends on the community in which it is needed. Some may require a very strong structure, where other groups do not require as much attention. Getting local law enforcement involved is very important piece to the neighborhood watch as they are supposed

Steps to Building a Successful Neighborhood Watch Program

Talk with neighbors in the community and discuss the issues and concerns regarding crime in the area. By creating awareness with neighbors or potential volunteers for the watch it can begin a basis from where the watch needs to start. Depending on how strong of a watch program is needed the members of the watch may want to start collecting data, police reports, and media reports for crime in their town. For example, if there is a group of younger people meeting up in the neighborhood and creating disturbances on a regular basis there could be some use for a neighborhood watch.

Once the community issues have been identified and volunteers have come forward to start the watch, the group should begin to meet with local law enforcement agents (typically police) and figure out how they can work together to resolve their community problems. Law enforcement officials can offer a lot of help when it comes to neighborhood watch. They can provide training, hand-outs, and up to date information on crime in the