Neighborhood Watch and Its Effect on the Community

Results from Chicago’s Project Safe Neighborhoods showed a 37 percent decrease each month in homicide cases. Before Project Safe Neighborhoods was created the homicide rate was up to 60 percent. Not only did Chicago see a difference in homicide rates, but, those who attended the small community programs were 30 percent less likely to return to prison. Research done through a survey with a 150 offenders showed that the small programs made a positive impact on showing a good relationship between the police and offenders. The

Nevertheless, the key to the improvement of the quality of life and perception of crime in these neighborhoods is the officer’s ability to listen to neighbors, working with them to creatively address issues. ROPE is the neighborhood’s liaison with government resources, including the police, providing an immediate link to community policing efforts throughout the City Of Elgin. The identification of neighborhood issues, followed by a coordination of effort lead by the police with City departments, is the key to ROPE success. Each neighborhood poses issues requiring unique solutions. ROPE, in concert with an enhanced department philosophy of community policing, offers an opportunity to benefit neighborhoods across the City of Elgin. Also, the ability to identify a problem and find its solution is one aspect of ROPE that provides both challenges and rewards to the officer and neighbors. The personal contact with the neighborhood is an immeasurable benefit of the program. The program provides a constant challenge to solve problems while living and working in the neighborhood that a resident officer must realize. Scheduling must be flexible, contrary to traditional policing, to allow officers the ability to address quality

When discussing how exposure to community policing can affect low economic neighborhoods, one must ask what is community policing? Miller, Hess, and Orthmann (2014) stated, it is a philosophy or orientation that emphasizes working proactively with citizens to reduce fear, solve crime-related problems, and prevent crime. Community policing can be a positive change in the community and for the law enforcement personnel that serves the community. An important concept to always remember is that the police are the community, and the community are the police (Miller et al., 2014). To successfully integrate this into police departments, we must examine several factors that have made police departments what they are today, what are ways to implement this new form of policing without resistance from law enforcement and citizens, and how community policing can affect the community and the work of law enforcement in the long run.

Community policing has evolved to be the most used strategy for policing. “It is an approach to crime detection and prevention that provides police officers and supervisors with new tools for addressing recurrent problems that plague communities and consume a majority of police agency time and resources” (Peak, 2012, 65). It has been defined by various people differently. But all the definitions have similar principles (Chappell, 2009). They focus on proactive problem solving and create relationships with the community to address any issue that may arise. Community policing is a combination of client-oriented and problem-oriented policing.

The world is a scary and dangerous place filled with thieves,murders, and bank robbers that terrorize the citys. The only manner to control what happens when people who decide to be thieves, murders, and bank robbers would be to have a group of individuals that solely dedicated their themselves to stopping people like that. We call poeple like that police men, individuals that take up the challenge of keeping order when things get bad. During the colonial days the towns would be taken care of by volunteers that would rely on night watch, volunteers in the town that would pick a night and would watch out for the people in the colonies as they did different things at night. But that never really worked because many times the volunteers would

Have you ever felt unsafe in your neighborhood? Maybe you didn’t feel safe letting your child go outside or leaving your car in the street overnight. Sixty-six percent of Liberty Greens community members surveyed from the ages of fourteen to fifty say that in the past they have felt unsafe in Liberty Greens. Throughout the ten years of living in this neighborhood, I have witnessed many members of the neighborhood complaining about the bikes and cars that have been stolen straight out of their driveway. So why is this happening and how can we stop it? Liberty Greens’ crime rate is too vast and therefore the neighborhood should be monitored by video cameras and checked upon daily by the Painesville City Police Department.

The last sign detailing the neighborhood watch community states that they "report all suspicious persons and activities to their Law Enforcement Agency". This statement aligns

This paper will cover two policing styles known as the “broken windows” theory and community policing. The paper will end with a small analysis of which style would be more practical long-term. This paper will start with an explanation as to what the “broken windows” theory is. Furthermore, this paper will cover some of advantages and disadvantages of that theory when put into practical application. Additionally, this essay will explain what “community policing” as defined by the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS). This is followed by a brief discussion some advantages and challenges that are unique to that approach. Lastly, this paper covers which one would be more viable policing in the long-term.

Ted Nugent said people looking out for suspicious behavior are “The purest form of Americans watching out for each other and being good neighbors” (Cover). I agree that people watching the neighborhood is a good thing because they are making sure it is safe for themselves and their children. If someone sees something suspicious they can tell another person so they can call the police while the other person tries to alleviate the problem before it blows out of proportion. If you see someone breaking into another person house, you could call them or the police to notify them showing you are a good

This article describes a project in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood that is designed to reduce gang problems, including violence and illegal drug activity. The Little Village Gang Violence Reduction Project was a comprehensive, community wide program designed to reduce serious violence in Chicago’s gang-ridden Little Village neighborhood. The main goal of this project was to reduce the extremely high level of serious gang violence, first at the individual youth gang member level, and then at both the gang and community level. The project appeared to reduce arrests for violent crimes, serious violent crimes, and drug crimes, but did not have an effect on arrests for property crimes or total arrests.

The first solution is to establish a neighborhood watch team for the most troubled neighborhoods. Security equipment can be equipped around the blocks and it can be monitored on a shift basis by willing locals. The price would be little to nothing if residents are very passionate in keeping their neighborhood a safe place, they can work for free and in return they will have a secure neighborhood. Security equipment can be either paid for by the city or the watch team can crowdfund for the funds to pay for it all. Benefits for this solution will include less crime, criminals won’t act as much knowing that now someone is watching them, and new people can move into the neighborhoods. Some major drawbacks that this can probably cause is residents not taking job seriously and lying about their shifts since they are not being paid for it, and maybe even seeing crimes take place but being paid off to not report it to the

In essence, Neighborhood Watch is a crime prevention program that stresses education and common sense. It teaches citizens how to help themselves by identifying and reporting suspicious activity in their neighborhoods. In addition, it provides citizens with the opportunity to make their neighborhoods safer and improve the quality of life. Neighborhood Watch groups typically focus on observation and awareness as a means of preventing crime and employ strategies that range from simply promoting social interaction and "watching out for each other" to active patrols by groups of citizens.

Many citizens have become annoyed with the crime in their neighborhoods. They have organized block watches, citizen patrols, along with neighborhood cleanups, and started harassing slumlords that allow drug dealers to use their properties. (Brown Art. 122). Among many of the crime fighting tools, the involvement of

Clark and Homel (1997) mention in this study that they have classified three different forms of surveillance when it comes to the prevention of any given situational crime. In their opinion, the three different types of surveillance contain formal surveillance, natural surveillance, and surveillance by employees. Clark and Homel (1997) explain why the reason they came about with these different types of situation crime preventions is because they are comparing the effectiveness of these surveillances by examination of the outcome of what is

The focus of this paper will be based upon different crime prevention strategies implemented by members of the communities, local and government authorities.