Kelly Kenoyer
The Sweet Home Police Department is rolling out a revamped neighborhood watch program in an effort to reduce crime rates in neighborhoods across the city.
The idea of a neighborhood watch is to have “neighbors coming together to look out for each other,” said Community Services Officer Sean Morgan. “It provides a direct connection between law enforcement and the neighborhood and vice versa.”
A major benefit of the program will be a comprehensive phone tree for the neighborhood, so that if a child goes missing, the entire neighborhood can go on alert to look for them relatively quickly.
“In light of the evacuations during the fires, we’re specifically interested in developing preparations for evacuation,” Morgan said. A phone tree would help disseminate evacuation orders to everyone, instead of relying on phone alerts that not every cell phone is set up for. That communication line can also help neighbors help each other, particularly if someone doesn’t have transportation to get out of town during a wildfire.
“We want to identify folks in the neighborhoods who don’t have access to information, and make sure they can get that information,” Morgan added.
The main purpose is crime deterrence, and that’s achieved through signage and increased reporting of criminal activity.
“If they know they’re potentially being watched by the neighbors, some of them will just move along,” he said. The watch program also encourages participants to report smaller crimes, like theft of lawn ornaments.
“The Police Department learns what’s going on in your neighborhood because you tell us,” he said.
The process is pretty simple: Call the Police Department and set up a meeting with your neighbors. Participating neighborhoods will designate a block captain, and can work with the department to learn about crime trends in their area.
“We’re trying to start up some new groups and get coverage across town with neighborhood watches.”
Morgan said a neighborhood watch can reduce crime significantly. Take a newer program on Nandina, for example, which started around 2010.
“In 2010, Nandina Street between 9th and 15th had 144 calls in the first half of the year. In 2020 up until the middle of the year, there were 66 calls in the same section. Of those, there were five arrests, and in 2010 there were 18.”
Another neighborhood, the former Mountain Shadows mobile home park on Tamarack Street, also saw major improvements to its crime rates after implementing a neighborhood watch program.
The park is now called Tamarack Ridge Estates, but back when Duane Davis was manager, the park had a lot of crime problems. Davis said starting the neighborhood watch program around 2008 helped the park get back on track.
He had to study up on laws, rules and regulations to act as the coordinator, but the police department provided him a lot of information to make it happen.
“By the end of the first month I had, like, probably 10 or 15 people that were interested,” Davis said. Three months later, he had 30 people interested and started holding bi-weekly meetings.
“We all did fundraisers with yard sales,” he said, “We raised about $700, and the proceeds went to radios, flashlights, and got the stickers and stuff put up around the park.”
Later fundraisers would go to community events, like a fireworks show during the Fourth of July, and an Easter egg hunt for the kids.
Some of the unsavory elements in the park pushed back against his efforts, he said, but he was able to evict many of those who were committing a lot of crimes, he said.
“Within a year’s time we actually had a waiting list to get into the park — for the first time ever.”
Davis also had neighborhood watch members run patrols in the evenings to prevent property crimes, which eventually reduced calls to the police significantly.
“The reasoning behind the phone calls, was a totally different one, it was no longer about domestic violence, it was no longer about thieves or druggies or stuff like this. It was more peaceful.”
Davis still lives in the park and said it remains much safer in the years since the neighborhood watch was active. He said anyone who wants to start a watch just has to be determined, and should recognize it’s worth the effort.
“It is very, very rewarding. Not only have you seen that your neighborhood, but the camaraderie, the friendships and the memories that you generate are immense.”