Ways to prevent crime in your Community

We used to keep our porch lights on and open the door when the doorbell rang, even if we didn’t know who was there. We don’t do that in the world we live in now. But there are many ways to take back control and prevent crime in your community. It just takes communication, commitment and time.

1. Work with your local public agencies and other organizations (neighborhood-based or community-wide) on solving common problems.
2. Set up a Neighborhood Watch or a community patrol, working with police. Make sure your streets and homes are well lit.
3. If you own a dog, be a part of your local Dog Walker Watch crime awareness program (sponsored by the National Association of Town Watch), and serve as “extra eyes and ears” for local law enforcement agencies in ongoing crime prevention efforts. nno_FB
4. Volunteer to help clean up your community. Call your city offices or local waste management company and schedule a dumpster for the event. Then pick up litter together. Show you care about where you live and each other.
5. Organise to help clean and improve parks in your area. Well-kept play equipment and a clean park can attract enough people to discourage illegal activities. Insist that your local government maintain the parks, immediately repairing vandalism or other damage.
6. Adopt a school. Help students, faculty, and staff promote a sense of community through your involvement in a wide range of programs and activities. Work with the school to establish drug-free, gun-free zones if they don’t already exist.
7. Mentor young people who need positive support from adults—through programs like Big Brothers and Big Sisters.
8. Create a community anti-violence competition. Include speech, dance, painting, drawing, singing, musical instrument acting, and other creative arts. Get young people involved to plan it and suggest prizes. Make it a fun, local celebration. You can hold it in a local park, and even include an old-fashioned potluck.
9. Keep yourself in the know. Know your neighborhood. Knowledge is a very powerful tool when combating crime. Education of different individuals can be key to all kinds of crime prevention.
10. Talk to your neighbors. When you know your neighbors, you know the people who belong in your neighborhood. A burglar might enter one of your neighbors’ homes and you might not think twice if you didn’t know the people who lived there. If someone’s child is causing destruction to property, you can call their parents if you know them.
11. Learn the normal happenings of your neighborhood to help you to know when something is wrong.
12. Inform yourself about the crimes in your area. Look online or in the local paper to follow criminal activity near you. Contact the local police department to see if they are able to provide you with crime statistics.
13. Talk to local law enforcement. Through cooperation with local law enforcement agencies, you can help keep them informed about your neighborhood. In addition, they can help provide support and education to residents. Remember law enforcement wants to help you.
14. Organise and/or join a neighborhood watch. This is also called a “block watch”, “apartment watch”, “home watch”, or “community watch”. These programs organize communities to work together with local police to manage crime in their areas. The three primary components of these programs are watching for suspicious activities, marking property to indicate ownership, and home security surveys
15. Nightly citizen patrols, victim support, and close communication with authorities all may be employed with these organizations.
16. Such programs have been started all over the country. Maybe one already exists in your community. These organisations don’t require frequent meetings (once a month or so). They don’t ask anyone to take personal risks to prevent crime. They leave the responsibility for catching criminals where it belongs – with the police.
17. Cooperate with your neighbours to report suspicious activities in the neighborhood, to keep an eye on homes when the resident is away, and to keep everyone in the area mindful of the standard precautions for property and self that should always be taken. Criminals often avoid neighborhoods where such groups exist.
18. Incorporate CCTV. By placing CCTV cameras outside to monitor criminal activity, you can help apprehend criminals in the event that you capture a crime on video. Cameras work best to deter criminals when there are a sufficient number of them which are visible.
19. Inhibit traffic, help pedestrians. High traffic areas that are not pedestrian-friendly can be havens for crime. Drive-by shootings rely on open, fast-moving streets. Areas without sidewalks, which favor cars over pedestrians, make it easier for criminals to operate.