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Are you a participant in your neighborhood
watch group, where neighbors and citizens act as the eyes and
ears of the police or sheriff’s office?
“As a law enforcement community, we’re
starting to realize we can only be effective to a certain point
without the help of the community,” said Sgt. Tom Newble, who
coordinates a local sheriff’s neighborhood watch programs. When
the public learns what it can do to protect itself from crime
and participates, Norman said, “the results are far beyond what
law enforcement can do by itself.”
If you don’t already have a neighborhood
watch system, discuss the program with the local police or
sheriff’s office. You can also reduce crime even more by
installing better lighting around the outside of your home.
To be effective, a neighborhood watch program
needs participants. Solicit help from neighbors, and find a
dedicated group within the watch program to patrol the
neighborhood at various times or the day and night.
“With people walking the neighborhood and
making their presence known, you just don’t see it anymore,”
Newble said of criminal activity. The single biggest problem now
is youth loitering.
Newble went on to say that neighborhood
watches don’t need people patrolling neighborhoods to be
successful. Instead, they can learn from the police or sheriff’s
office how to look for suspicious activity they might see in
normal routines and when to call the local authorities.
Additionally, you can learn to inspect their
own homes and make them a less inviting target for crime by
improving lighting, trimming shrubs and installing better locks
or hardware for doors and windows. There are also other ways to
secure your home and yard.
Even if local authorities can’t act on
problems right away, bringing it to their attention can lead to
solutions later.
Once you have established a core group, you
can apply to local authorities for signage to place in your
neighborhood. Thieves and burglars go where the prey is an easy
target, so advertise that you have a watch program, and watch
the bad guys go somewhere else!
And of course, one way to keep the burglars
at bay is to install a monitored home security system. |
