SpotCrime Neighborhood Watch Tips

Starting a neighborhood watch may not seem as daunting a task as it sounds.

We’ve learned from interaction with our subscribers over the past couple years that all you need are interested and informed neighbors.

All it takes is one organized and motivated person to make a community watch successful. In fact, in one community, we’ve encountered one resident forwarding on our SpotCrime email alerts to over 100 neighbors. Amazing!

Here are some suggestions and tips we’ve come up with when trying to create your own neighborhood watch of your own. we have to creating your own neighborhood watch

Collect names, email addresses, phone numbers, and addresses of neighbors interested in participating. Knowing where your neighbors live will help you learn the boundaries of your watch.

Establish a line of communication. We’ve seen anything as technical as a neighborhood watch website to Facebook groups and pages, Yahoo! Groups, Google Groups, all of the way to something as simple as an email list. You’ll need some form of communication to facilitate the process of contacting and connecting with neighbors. Make sure it’s available to all members and gives them the opportunity to share information among the group as well as with neighbors who may not be participating in the group yet.

Collect crime information. There are many resources, including SpotCrime, that have crime information. We offer daily and weekly alerts (and a very practical Terms of Use on sharing the information). The daily alerts are sent whenever we update crime on our maps. The weekly alerts are sent every Sunday and compare the past two weeks worth of crime. In each alerts, we include a crime map tailored specifically to your address! Not sure where to start in your effort to collect crime information? Contact your local police department and ask them. Which brings me to my next point….

Contact your local police department! Let them know you’ve started a neighborhood watch. They will be more than willing to help!

Once you’ve established the group of neighbors who want to spot crime, decide the level of intensity of your watch group. Is your group going to arrange meetings? Are you going to do patrols? Street cleanups? There are different levels of community watch groups all over the US that are successful in their very own way.

Something simple as forwarding on emails does a great deal. Scheduling patrols works too! Just remember that establishing who wants to participate and a line of communication is key!

Stay aware, stay safe!