How to Form a Neighborhood Watch
Many of our blog posts have focused on making changes or maintain your property to demotivate intruders. You want to show that you’re home, you’re aware, and that it won’t be easy to break in. The Neighborhood Watch instead focuses on reducing opportunities for criminal activity. A home security system doesn't just focus on the electronic portion, but the safety tips and procedures around it as well.
Studies have found that this community-based security does reduce crime levels. Learn how you can incorporate your Toucan camera coverage into a Neighborhood Watch program to boost security in your whole community!
What is Neighborhood Watch?
Law enforcement or a group of civilians may determine that there has been a high level of crime in an area, oftentimes a specific crime such as tagging, package theft, or burglary. In this case, a Neighborhood Watch will be established, calling on citizens to inform law enforcement regarding any suspicious activity.
How Does Neighborhood Watch Work?
Rather than apprehending suspects on their own or rely solely on security camera footage, citizens learn to recognize suspicious persons and activities and report their findings to law enforcement. Neighborhood Watch programs begin by educating civilians on observations and awareness on ways to secure their homes and practice safety procedures around their home. The success of the program relies on a community’s willingness to be helpful and social with one of another to meet up and provide information or findings to keep the community safe. You can’t have a successful Neighborhood Watch if the community doesn’t have eager and interested participants.
For Neighborhood Watch programs to work, a community must be able to easily communicate with not only themselves, but with law enforcement as well.
Law enforcement may reach out to citizens first if they notice a trend in a certain crime. Emails, posters, and flyers can inform citizens about what to watch out for. Large companies may even do a localized version of this within their own workforce.
How can I get Neighborhood Watch started in my community?
The first step is to get to know your neighbors! The program relies on synergy within the community.
Make a note of what kind of crimes or issues are common in your area. Then think about different signs you could watch out for. For example, if tagging happens frequently overnight, you might want to assign neighbors to take watch or check their security camera recordings from certain times of night. Any helpful information that you uncover as a group can then be reported to local law enforcement.
How Can My Security Cameras Help?
As I mentioned above, you can let your security camera recordings do the work instead of standing outside at night looking for suspicious activity.
The Toucan Security Camera and Wireless Video Doorbell Camera both come equipped with passive infrared motion detection that will trigger the camera into recording events. The cameras are able to register movement up to 30 feet away and offer clear full HD resolution as well as night vision. So if there are suspicious persons frequenting your neighborhood at any time of the day or night, your camera will pick it up and send you instant notifications straight to your mobile device. Having more than one camera around your home will be definitely helpful to make sure you can cover more of your bases.
Practice not only keeping your own home safe but helping the whole neighborhood stay safe by communicating any suspicious findings you may get from your security camera footage to your Neighborhood Watch team.
Learn more about Neighborhood Watch programs here:
https://www.nnw.org/about-neighborhood-watch