Neighbourhood Watch, Block Watch, Town Watch, Building Watch, Crime Watch, Community Patrol – whatever the name, its one of the most effective and least costly ways to prevent crime and reduce fear. Neighbourhood Watch fights the isolation that crime both creates and feeds upon. It forges bonds among area residents, helps reduce burglaries and robberies, and improves relations between police and the communities they serve.
Why A Community Patrol?
- It works. Throughout the country, dramatic decreases in burglary and related offences are reported by law enforcement professionals in communities with active Watch Programs
- Today’s transient society produces communities that are less personal. Many families have two working parents and children involved in many activities that keep them away from home. An empty house in a neighbourhood where none of the neighbours know the owner is a primary target for burglary.
- Neighbourhood Watch also helps build pride and serves as a springboard for efforts that address other community concerns such as recreation for youth, child care, and affordable housing.
WHAT DOES A COMMUNITY PATROL DO?
A Community patrol is neighbours helping neighbours. They are extra eyes and ears for reporting crime to the police and helping neighbours. Members meet their neighbours, learn how to make their homes more secure, watch out for each other and the neighbourhood, and report activity that raises their suspicions to the.
WHAT ARE THE MAJOR COMPONENTS OF A COMMUNITY PATROL?
- Community meetings. These should be set up on a regular basis such as bi-monthly, monthly, or six times a year.
- Citizens’ or community patrol. A citizens’ patrol is made up of volunteers who walk or drive through the community and alert police to crime and questionable activities.
- Communications. These can be a simple as a weekly flier posted or delivered to your post box on community announcement boards to a newsletter that updates neighbours on the progress of the program to a neighbourhood electronic discussion board or website.
- Special events. These are crucial to keep the program going and growing. Host events that focus on current issues such as hate or bias-motivated violence, crime in schools, teenage alcohol and other drug abuse or domestic violence.
- Other aspects of community safety.
WHAT ARE MY RESPONSIBILITIES AS A PATROL MEMBER?
- Be alert!
- Watch out for each other.
- Report suspicious activities and crimes to the police.
WHAT KIND OF ACTIVITIES SHOULD I BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR AS A PATROL MEMBER?
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- Someone screaming or shouting for help.
- Someone looking in windows of houses and parked cars.
- Property being taken out of houses where no one is at home or from closed businesses.
- Cars, van, or trucks moving slowly with no apparent destination or without lights.
- A stranger sitting in a car or stopping to talk to a child
We are the eyes and ears for the police.
- We are non confrontational.
- We provide services for our local board to keep our community clean, orderly and graffiti free.
- We assist the police with traffic accidents, collecting intelligence and responding to low threat incidents that may not require a police officer.