Neighborhood Watch Reporting

There’s lots of information out there on how to start a Neighborhood Watch and plenty of guidelines for building community involvement and target hardening (making your home and community a more difficult – and less appealing – target for would be criminals) but there’s not much information on what you should actually be reporting.  Of course, some incidents are obvious – a guy with a ski mask climbing into your neighbor’s window, drug dealers on the corner, local kids stealing a radio from someone’s car.  However, it’s unlikely that you’ll witness such a clear-cut incident and, if you do, you should call the police immediately, not file a report.  Everything else is up for grabs and largely depends on the specific needs and problems of your community and the preferences of your local law enforcement liaison.

All to often we see something that seems out of place or suspicious and talk ourselves out of reporting it.

“That car with the tinted windows has just been there sitting in the parking lot for an hour with the engine running.  Maybe I should report it.”

“Nah it’s probably no big deal. “

“I don’t know who to call anyway.  If I call the police they probably won’t do anything.  Maybe it’s nothing and I’ll end up looking like an idiot.”

Or maybe we’re worried about possible retaliation.

“I’d really love to report those kids hanging out on the corner but they’ll probably find out I’m the one who reported them and they’ll slash my tires.”

Or maybe we’re worried that we’ll look like a whiner.

“I’d love to report those kids on the corner but I’d look like a wimp.  A real man would just go confront them.”

There are also neighbors who have none of these issues and report every last insignificant detail of their neighbor’s lives, or personal matters that don’t affect the neighborhood in general.  You know the guy – every neighborhood has one.  Your grass is too long, your trashcan sat out on the curb too long…

While there are many good outcomes attributable to Neighborhood Watch programs – a stronger sense of community, target hardening, etc., the underlying principal of Neighborhood Watch is that you, the community, are serving as the eyes and ears of the police, who can’t be there all the time.  The hierarchical structure of Neighborhood Watch (participant, block captain, coordinator, liaison) exists so that the police aren’t overwhelmed by having to manage multiple points of contact with each community they are assigned to and also helps filter the information.  This is where Neighborhood Watch typically starts to break down.  If you decide to stick your neck out and report the car in our example, it still has to go through someone else before it gets to the police.  They may also second guess you or alter the details slightly.  Did you ever participate in the exercise in elementary school where the kid at the end of a row of kids is given a short message to pass down the line?  He’s told that “Bob found a stray dog while walking home from school with Sally” and by the time the message gets passed down to the last kid it has something to do with a Lama getting stuck in a toaster.

Then there’s the lack of feedback.  If people in your community are not actively engaged as participants, they will not participate.  Your Neighborhood Watch will die a slow death, vines will eventually cover the signs you posted and the whole thing will be forgotten until homes start getting broken into again.  People will be upset, accusations will fly and you’ll have a community meeting and the whole cycle will start over again.  People like to know what’s going on in their community.  If you’re secretive – reports go to the police but nothing ever goes back to the participants – you will not be successful.

I’m sure you’ve guessed what I’m getting at by now.  This is exactly why we’re building Nation of Neighbors.  In most communities, if you were to put the little, seemingly insignificant, pieces of information together that are scattered throughout the community you can build a story that will actually help law enforcement and community members find solutions – or catch perpetrators.

Our reporting guideline:

Report anything that may negatively impact public safety or security and has a potential effect on more than yourself that you have first-hand knowledge of.

You can also report any activity that your community would like to collect data on.  Accidents, stray animals, crime, drug activity, gang activity, graffiti, and illegal dumping are a few examples of common reports.

Report the car, report the kids on the corner, report anything you like that you believe may adversely affect your community.  Most of the reports will be quickly be forgotten.  But once in a while pieces will fit together and help you solve a crime or, even better, prevent a crime.  Reports are shown to other community members anonymously so you don’t need to worry about looking like an idiot or about retaliation.  You can even elect to make your community group ‘private’ – no one will know it exists except the participants and you can hand select those participants.

Click here to learn more about reporting with nation of neighbors. http://www.nationofneighbors.com/pages/reports

Online mapping services help police spot trends in crime?

An article in today’s issue of USA Today by Donna Leinwand (http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/services/2009-09-09-onlinecrime_N.htm) mentions that police are increasingly turning to online crime mapping sites to identify local crime trends.  It’s an important subject but I think it falls short.  The police already know where crimes have occurred.  After all, the data shown on commercial or agency crime websites comes from the police.  What the article doesn’t mention is how important this information is to the public.  When you know that teens have been breaking into cars in your neighborhood or that a burglary occurred just down the street you’re much more likely to be proactive.  You’ll probably lock your car at night, make sure that your garage door is locked  and leave some outdoor lights on.  This is called ‘target hardening’ and is one of the principal components of Neighborhood Watch.  We will never get rid of crime but we can make it much more difficult.  Providing timely data about local crime to citizens empowers all of us to help take a bite out of crime.

September is National Preparedness Month

CERT Courses (Community Emergency Response Training) are available through county Gov organizations, usually an office of emergency preparedness, homeland security or emergency management in your community. These courses consist of multiple topics and sessions over a period of several weeks, are well-worth the time and effort and will certify you to volunteer in your area in event of an emergency. A hard-hat, a vest and ID are usually given on completion of the course. In addition, your local office will offer mini-courses on other pertinent topics such as preparing and maintaining a Weather Emergency Kit for your family.

Now is the time to prepare for power outages and winter storms by gathering necessary supplies in a container for your home and car. Many Gov websites (DHS, FEMA, etc.) offer lists of items to include in home and car kits. Avoid the use of candles if possible by stocking up on small, inexpensive LED lanterns and extra batteries for the home and car kits.

Do you have your BOP?

Those of you with military or LE backgrounds will recognize the term as shorthand for a Bug-Out Pack, a bag of critical or essential items that allows you to “grab and go” when the situation demands. Readers living in areas subject to rapid fires or sudden severe weather probably already realize the necessity of a BOP. Please remember that cell phone outages will be common in an emergency due to system overloading and infrastructure damage, so please plan for alternate means of communication. Inexpensive FRS and GMRS radios with extra batteries can keep family members or neighbors in touch during an emergency. Plan now — be safe later.

Ready.gov is a great source of information about emergency preparedness and putting together an emergency kit for your family. Please take a few minutes and read through their supply list.

“Shake and Bake” – the New Meth Threat

Meth users no longer have to pony up cash to their favorite drug dealer – they can now do a quick home brew without the former need for a kitchen or garage lab to cook the product.

Remember the griping of all of us who suffer from sinus and allergy problems about having to stand in line and show ID to purchase pseudofed every month? Well, despite the illicit trafficking of bulk pseudofed from suppliers overseas and ingress through our porous southern borders, meth manufacturers were also somewhat inconvenienced and set about to resolve the problem and lower production costs.

The new home brew method uses only small amounts of pseudofed, a 2 liter pop bottle, some common and poisonous chemicals, a few shakes and you get heat, pressure, crystal meth and a noxious brown slurry which you can discard with the pop bottle—no need to worry about bulk waste disposal. Heck, you can even do this while driving and get enough for a few doses out of one mix—if everything goes precisely as planned.

Apparently, actions and timing are most critical here since there are rapidly increasing reports of explosions, fires and severe injuries using Shake and Bake. The old kitchen labs were a little safer it seems since you had a bit of warning and could run like heck. With Shake and Bake you are holding the lab in your hands and near your face!

Warning to Community Clean Up Crews: Never attempt to pick up a “puffy” soda bottle since it could explode—and never open a bottle with a brown liquid inside since the contents are highly poisonous. Alert LE when these bottles start appearing in your community and try to get the tag # when you see one pitched from a vehicle.

A Personal Success Story

This is how Neighborhood Watch works

Most of the time we don’t discuss “Success Stories”.  However, some of the reports filed this past Friday involved me personally so I hope that no one minds if I make an exception.  As I mentioned in my previous post, my wife’s car was broken into last Thursday night.  They took her purse, wallet and two cell phones.  After calling the police, I filed a report on Nation of Neighbors and checked my email.  Sure enough, we weren’t the only ones in the area who had been hit – there were some other local reports – a stolen package, cars broken into and a stolen dirt bike.  The beauty of it was that the reports created a walking path – it was easy to see that the criminals were likely on foot.  We live in a rural area and, knowing that thieves who steal purses don’t like to be seen carrying them for long, I grabbed my camera and went for a walk.

It didn’t take long to find footprints in the grass along the side of the road that led to a box they had swiped from a neighbor’s car.  They had ripped the box open as they walked and, thanks to the pieces they left behind and their footprints in the tall grass, it was easy to tell which direction they went next.  I continued to follow their trail into the woods and, before long I found a receipt with my wife’s name on it.  A little more searching revealed her purse, wallet and other belongings thrown into the woods.  They had gone through everything looking for cash but had no use for the pennies, which they threw on the ground.

I continued to follow their trail and collected some additional property that did not belong to me and eventually located the missing dirtbike at the bottom of a small ravine next to a road. I called the sheriff’s office.  We recovered the dirtbike (which was towed to the Sheriff’s Office until the owner could come claim it) and I returned the other items I found to their owners.  Thanks to some alert neighbors there are suspects and the police are following up. 

The only item of ours unaccounted for is an older iPod nano – I hope they enjoy Bluegrass and the Nation of Neighbors video we had saved on it.

Don’t leave anything valuable in your car.

When we share the pieces of information we know quickly, we’re able to build a more complete picture of what happened and improve outcomes for everyone.  Everyone except the people who stole your stuff.

Crime Fighting is Personal Again

My wife called me from work this morning to let me know that someone had broken into her car last night.  She stopped at a gas station and looked for her wallet – then she noticed papers from the glovebox on the floor, the rear window of her SUV was messed up, bike rack hanging off, cell phones gone…  So we’ve deactivated the credit cards and cell phones, filed a police report and reported it on Nation of Neighbors so our neighbors know to be alert.

The irony of our July newsletter focusing on avoiding vehicle break-ins is not lost on me.  If there’s a silver lining here, it’s that they really didn’t get anything of value except some useless plastic, a couple of now useless cell phones and some photos of our kids we very much wish we still had.  That, and I have a very good reminder of why I’ve worked so hard to build Nation of Neighbors over the past few years.

We’re coming for you, punks.

What’s the Difference Between Nation of Neighbors and Twitter?

There have been a lot of references recently to the use of Twitter by law enforcement and community crime watch groups. I thought it might be helpful, especially if you haven’t heard of us before, to describe what Nation of Neighbors is and how it works, in relation to Twitter.

Twitter facilitates the exchange of short message between users based on user level subscriptions.  You elect to ‘follow’ certain users and can receive an update when users you are following add new messages.  You can also view a chronological list of messages from users that you are following and there mechanisms for replying and rebroadcasting other users messages to your own list of followers.

Nation of Neighbors broadcasts messages based on geographical location.  You are automatically networked to other users who are in your local community and to any participating local law enforcement agencies.

Let’s look at how a scenario might play out with both Twitter and Nation of Neighbors.

You arrive home and find your house was broken into.  After you call the police you:

* post the crime on Twitter.  Your followers (subscribers) find out about the crime and may retweet it if they happen to live in the same locality as you.

* report the crime on Nation of Neighbors.  The information, including the approximate location is sent immediately to your actual neighbors and law enforcement who can submit tips or feedback.

A few more differences:

Twitter allows you to send text and links – adding content to Nation of Neighbors is more like Facebook in that you can add images, links, files, events…

Maintaining a local community network via Twitter requires that each participant follow every other participant.  While it’s possible, it’s hard to maintain.  Nation of Neighbors provides the community level network automatically while still allowing community managers to control access to their network.

Anyone can create a Twitter account.  Only verified law enforcement agencies can create an agency account on Nation of Neighbors.

I’ll add some more examples to this list later this week.  In the meantime, here’s a recent excerpt mentioning both Nation of Neighbors and Twitter with regard to crime.

While social networking plays only a small role in national security, community safety could be enormously improved by expanding resident reporting systems, like WatchJeffersonCounty.net [editor's note: now Nation of Neighbors], which collects reports of unusual behaviors. These reports provide important clues for civic officials to prevent crimes, control teenage gangs, or simply fix potholes. A huge success, now run by the U.S. Dept of Justice, is the Amber Alert reporting system for abducted children. Beyond the 430 cases they claim to have helped solve, the awareness generated among 7 million participants may have prevented many more abductions. Websites for reporting extreme weather effects, such as Storm Watchers typically run by local radio/TV stations, are being joined by reporting schemes for earthquake damage, influenza outbreaks, food poisoning, and other community problems. The micro-blogging tool, Twitter, is now rapidly spreading, as users from Orange County firefighters to Mumbai police post their 140-character messages about where they are and what they are doing.

A National Initiative for Social Participation

Shneiderman
Science 13 March 2009: 1426-1427
DOI: 10.1126/science.323.5920.1426

A few thoughts on Government 2.0

I had high hopes for ‘Government 2.0′ when I first heard the term used earlier this year. While this concept may not be directly related to crime or Neighborhood Watch, the idea that private citizens and organizations can partner with local government agencies to enhance existing services for all involved parties underpins what we’ve been doing for the past several years.

I’ve recently listened to Tim O’Reilly discuss his concept of Government as a platform and read through the list of selected presentations for the upcoming Expo Showcase and, I have to admit – I’m a little disappointed. I’ve spent more time than I probably should thinking about the interaction between local government and citizens and what I’ve heard so far leaves out some important issues. Here are a few of those issues that I hope to hear discussed at the upcoming Gov2.0 events. Read the rest of this entry »

Happy National Night Out

Tonight has been designated National Night Out by the National Association of Town Watch (NATW).

Last year’s National Night Out campaign involved citizens, law enforcement agencies, civic groups, businesses, neighborhood organizations and local officials from over 15,000 communities from all 50 states, U.S. territories, Canadian cities and military bases worldwide. In all, over 37 million people participated in National Night Out 2008.

NATIONAL NIGHT OUT is designed to:

* Heighten crime and drug prevention awareness;
* Generate support for, and participation in, local anticrime programs;
* Strengthen neighborhood spirit and police-community partnerships; and
* Send a message to criminals letting them know that neighborhoods are organized and fighting back.

Perhaps most importantly, National Night Out provides an opportunity for neighbors and law enforcement to meet face to face over hot dogs in a community setting.

For more information or to find out if your town is having an event: http://www.nationalnightout.org/nno/index.html

What is ‘online’ Neighborhood Watch?

Lately I’ve been working on writing a guide to “Networking your Neighborhood Watch with Nation of Neighbors”. I realized that I’ve spent so much time focusing on defining Nation of Neighbors, and putting the pieces into a tidy story that can be told and understood in the scant amount of time we have before a website visitor decides to go elsewhere, that I’ve neglected to say what Nation of Neighbors is not.

Nation of Neighbors is ‘online’ to the extent that we use the web as one means to deliver a service. We do not intend for Nation of Neighbors to be a replacement to the traditional Neighborhood Watch model. Personal relationships are the cornerstone of success for Neighborhood Watch – or any project out to build strong communities. You still need to hold meetings, talk in person to your neighbors and actively engage with your local law enforcement officials. Nation of Neighbors is designed to enhance these relationships – not replace them.