Historical neighborhood-watch advocacy by Skip Coburn (Richmond Coburn). Crime reductions and causal claims are period statements; no underlying evaluation accompanies the source.
On Sept. 30 representatives from various community organizations throughout the City attended a Neighborhood Watch Orientation Session sponsored by the Public Affairs Division of the St. Louis Police Department.
During this orientation session, staff officers of the Public Affairs Division described how Neighborhood Watch could be utilized to help reduce crime in St. Louis.
This program does have a “track-record” of success in those localities where it has been employed.
For example, El Paso, Texas, and Seattle, Washington, realized 45% and 50% reductions in burglaries, respectively, after the implementation of Neighborhood Watch. Closer to home, St. Louis County experienced a 12% decline in burglaries.
The logic behind Neighborhood Watch is certainly nothing new and, in fact, closely resembles that of the traditional “Block Watchers” strategy. Basically, Neighborhood Watch proposes to organize groups of neighborhood residents as “eyes on the streets” to observe and report criminal activity and suspicious behavior.
The Police Department believes such citizen participation is critical in light of recent cutbacks in officers assigned to patrol duties. Currently, there are 1900 officers employed by the St. Louis Police Department, of which approximately one-third are on duty at any one time.
This works out to roughly one officer to protect every 725 residents of our City.
When one considers the frequency of crime (e.g. 57,000 crimes in 1980, a burglary every 30 minutes, a crime against property every 11 minutes), it is easy to see that the police cannot do it alone. Community organizations wishing to implement Neighborhood Watch programs in their neighborhood should be prepared to work closely with the Public Affairs Officers assigned to their respective police district.
In the Seventh District, those Officers would be Terry Willis and John Still, who can be reached at 444-5606 or 444-5471.
The duties of these officers are to: (1) conduct training sessions for organized neighborhood groups; (2) disseminate crime data to Neighborhood Watch participants; (3) help print a neighborhood newsletter about crime for any area utilizing Neighborhood Watch; and (4) distribute other information in order to enhance security within Neighborhood Watch areas. Neighborhood Watch participants will be expected to undergo training in order to operate effectively as a crime surveillance group (as opposed to “Block Watchers” where it is everyone for himself) and will be required to have the police survey their home for recommended security measures. Decals will be distributed to all Neighborhood Watch participants for display on the front door of their home for identification purposes.
There is really nothing revolutionary about this program.
The techniques have been successfully used before with proven results.
The reason for publicizing Neighborhood Watch now is to remind people that we could do more in the way of working with the police rather than ignoring them until there is a “rash of crimes” or if we have been personally victimized. Why as a neighborhood should we sit on our “haunches” until the problem has happened? Instead, we should organize Neighborhood Watch groups in Skinker-DeBaliviere now and prevent problems from occurring again. Anyone interested in organizing such a group is encouraged to contact the Community Council as soon as possible at 862-5122.
Originally published in The Paper, November 1981.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1981_11.pdf, printed page(s) 4; PDF page(s) 4.
