Cruise down the tree-lined streets of the Old Oaks neighborhood on a summer evening and know this: Someone is watching you.
It might be Richard Vickers, who records your license plate number in a notebook as he retrieves gun shell casings from the sidewalk while out on his nightly walk. Or it might be Doug Motz, who alerts via text message: “Watch out for the green van lurking in the alley.”
Like the members of this well-oiled block watch group in central Ohio, neighbors across the country are using Twitter, blogs, e-mail and street patrols to help thwart crime. While some groups form after break-ins or muggings, there are signs of increased interest as law enforcement agencies are strained by layoffs and furloughs amid ballooning budget deficits.
“This is our neighborhood,” says Vickers, a lawyer who moonlights as block watch captain. “Why should we allow people to force us out of here?”
More than 20,000 block watch groups are registered on the National Sheriffs’ Association Web site, compared to about 5,000 just four years ago, said Chris Tutko, the association’s director of neighborhood watch programs.
“There’s a big push on to learn how to do it and how to get people involved,” says Tutko, who trains law enforcers in running watch groups.
In most cities, wannabe block watch members must be trained by police in how to identify and respond to criminal behavior. The first step seems almost quaint: Talk to your neighbors, police say.
After a string of kidnappings and home invasions in Atlanta last year, indignant residents founded Safe Atlanta For Everyone, which coordinates a watch network on the city’s east side. Their efforts took on new urgency when the financially strapped city ordered furloughs from December to July, forcing police and other municipal workers to take eight more hours off every week.
Block watch members…