Are Neighborhood Watch Programs successful?

Over the last several months, our small one family community has had several incidents of an unsettling nature.
1. A car parked overnight in the driveway was broken into and several small items were stolen, although higher priced electronics on the seat were overlooked.(The police were notified)
2. A HomeOwner (who is a former police officer) noticed footprints in the morning dew on two separate occasions which led up to several residence windows and driveways.
3. Gasoline was siphoned from a car parked overnight in a HomeOwner's driveway.
4. A HomeOwner who went to turn on their front door lights, came upon a young bare-chested man standing in close proximity to their front door. (The police were called, but the man fled leaping over the HomeOwner's fence, rear yard and escping into a neighboring Community).
I have been getting calls from HomeOwners now interested in a Community Watch Program. I had tried to start this two years ago, and again last year, but there was no interest. As always, people want action when they are directly affected.

I have called the town Public Safety Commission and am awaiting a call back with up to date info on what is required to join a Neighborhood Watch Program.

My questions:
Has any other HOA been invovled with this type of Program. What are the benefits, requirements and pitfalls?
We have a BOD Mtg scheduled for next week, so I'd like to be prepared with as many answers to questions as I can get.

I appreciate all the help you can give me.
Thanks,
Gloria

The attached document, a Neighborhood Watch Toolkit, may be of some interest to you and others.

In some cases Neighborhood Watch programs have been very successful. I suspect much depends on the motivation level of the residents. I would point out that if they were not of value then they wouldn't enjoy the support of so many police departments. Generally though any involvement with each other tends to lower crime rates.

I would also point you to the following resource:
http://www.nationalnightout.org/natw/index.html

George,
I read the attachment and was a bit disappointed. I guess only because so much of the success depends on participation of the Neighborhood, and ours does not have a great track record.

This idea was brought up in previous years, but no one was interested. Only now that several recent incidents have brought a bit of unease into the Community, suddenly my phone is ringing again.

It seems that the same very few people who serve on the BOD and do virtually all of the work, might be faced with the task of shouldering this new endeavour...and that is a death sentence for its success. Maybe I am wrong, and hopefully I am, but once our Members realize that THEY may actually have to participate themselves, this may fade away again. I believe they think the BOD will just post a "Neighborhood Watch" sign and then patrol the street ourselves, and they can sit safely and quietly in their house.

I think this type of program could be very beneficial to the Community. If I didn't I wouldn't have pushed this twice before. I just am not at all sure fear will triump over apathy. But I will due my diligence, gather as much info as I can and present it to the BOD again, at our next meeting.

I am sorry if this post sounds so discouraged. Maybe my discouragement stems from the fact that it is 1:30 in the morning and discomfort from fire ant bites is depriving me of sleep, and not the reality of apathic neighbors.

Gloria

Gloria, block watches can be very successful and open a door to your community that is quite helpful. I organized one here for our community through our local police station. There actually are Community Liason Police Officers who volunteer/dedicate their time. Here is how it worked for us:

We had to have a good number of the community involved (out of 151 homes we had about 10 at our first meeting), we held 3 meetings with the CLPO and then got to tour the Police Station. Incentives our Police Station offers are helicopter rides for BW Coordinators and ride alongs for members of the BW. We got our signs and installed them and were privy to information about crime from our Liason Officer. We received extra drive throughs from PO on patrol. I attended special meetings with other coordinators from other neighborhoods. This was helpful in sharing information about what crimes were happening around us.

One of my good friends is the BW Coordinator across the street. She has a huge party every year, mostly from donated time, money and food from local business'. She has Police horses, dogs, swat cars, police cars, swat people...everything you could imagine. As a way to get people involved and educate them about crime and what the PO do. It is a wonderful event and was even reported on the news.

Things went swell for us, until we had that overbearing neighbor who started doing stops on cars, ticketing them..lol..throwing himself in front of speeding cars to get them to slow down and riding along with his maglight doing checks on people to see if they lived here. While I enjoyed his enthusiasm, he became a liability and had to be removed by the CLPO. Now our BW is small and participation is slim. Everyone was turned off toward the BW because of him. BUT it still works for us, we share information amongst each other, still have our contacts with the PO and prosecutors office (very helpful) and share information with our surrounding neighborhood BW participants.

We don't help deter all crime, but get useful information on crimes that could be entering our neighborhood.
We also hire a PO to do security throughout the neighborhood during the summer months or as needed.

Contact your local police station and get the information.

A higher crime rate in the area generally brings people's interest up in a BW. Use this when talking with your neighbors. Like our BW program states, homeowners have to be the eye's and ears of the the police. Therefore involvement is necessary and a local BW program can teach you how to be involved without drawing attention to yourselves individually to the criminals.

It can be successful, just make the call and rally home owners to attend.

Honestly, in seeing how the BW conducts itself across the street, the more involved the community is the more the Police take note and help out.

We recently knocked around the idea of getting a Neighborhood Crime Watch group going. We contacted our local Sheriff's Department which sets up these things (to work with them). We found out that there must be three volunteers involved. A Chairperson; a Co-chairperson and a Communication Leader.

Sitting ducks. We're small--only 46 units--and if we had a meeting with the residents and the Sheriff's Department we couldn't picture three people having the guts to raise their hands, be identified and volunteer. Rule violators (and criminals) have no problem retaliating against board members for enforcing the rules. Pity the poor three people who report criminal activity.

I lived in a neighborhood that was registerd with the Neighborhood Watch Program. First of all, we were told by the P.D. that this is NOT a function of the HOA; it's a function for the residents of the neighborhood; so, our program was kept separate from the HOA. There are certain requirements which must be met in order to remain in the program. There are a required number of meetings and activities which must be undertaken during the year. Yes, it's a good way to get neighbors involved, but if people don't have the time or effort the program will not work. We were able to maintain our status w/i the program but it took quite a bit of effort on the part of the Block Watch Captain. I do believe there is a certain amount of deterence to crime in neighborhoods where the Block Watch is active. Just seeing the signs in a neighborhood will deter some criminal activity. But, IMO, the main ingredient is having neighbors who are watchful and not afraid to report a crime or potential crime.

Our BOD Mtg is this coming Monday. Unfortuately, I have not heard back as yet from our Police dept with any info about the Neighborhood Watch. I have put it on the Agenda for the BOD Mtg for discussion, and, hopefully, some neighbors will actually attend the Mtg also, since they had expressed interest.

I agree that the Neighborhood Watch should be separate from the BOD duties. We are a small self-managed HOA (27 homes) and the BOD has enough responsibilities already (enforcing the CCR's, violation notices and follow-ups, collecting dues, paying bills, overseeing contractors, maintaining the front entrance). I am very curious to see if those people who called wanting to initiate a Neighborhood Watch will step up to shoulder any of the responsibilities (such as one of the three contact positions which a previous poster noted are required).

Again, if I did not believe that Neighborhood Watch programs could be very beneficial to our Community, I would not have brought it to the Community twice before. I have become jaded to the apathy I guess. Now that these latest incidents are fresh in people's minds, they want something done...I just hope that they are willing to do some of the work themselves.

Gloria

Kirk,

I agree with your post. I believe that the Neighborhood Watch program should be a HOA sponsored deal, with the HOA facilitating the contact to bring the Community together, but then it should function independently. As long as the Neighborhood Watch doesn't violate any CCR's, I don't think the BOD has much "authority" over it. The BOD's charge is detailed in our governing Documents, and the Neighborhood Watch Program falls outside of those guidelines...IMHO.

Anyone feel otherwise?