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City of Colorado Springs / Police / Crime Prevention & Neighborhood Watch / Neighborhood/Business Watch



Neighborhood / Business Watch
 
Neighborhood Watch is a group of neighbors who are willing to communicate with each other and pass along crime and non-crime related neighborhood information. The groups are educated in crime prevention, trained to observe suspicious activity and report the activity, to each other and the police.
 
Neighborhood Watch is:
  • A community - police partnership.
  • Neighbors coming together to help each other not become victims of crime.
  • Neighbors coming together to address community issues.
  • Learning and practicing Crime Prevention through Environmental Design
  • Learning to identify suspicious activity and reporting the activity to neighbors   and the police.
  • Members all live on the same street or within line of sight, generally             
  • 5-25  homes per group.
 Neighborhood Watch is not:
  • Citizens armed patrol.
  • Vigilante groups.
  • Encouraging residents to take risks to prevent crimes.
  • A program that guarantees that a crime will not occur in a neighborhood.
  • A political group.
  • A neighborhood association or neighborhood organization.
  • A law enforcement entity.

 
 
 
 
 It is a fact of life that relationships in many of today's communities have become less personal than they were years ago. Families are more transient, children have more activities that take them and their parents away from home, and there are more families with both parents working. The once-familiar sight of families visiting with each other on front porches while keeping a watchful eye on children and activities in the neighborhood is a rarity in most communities today. This trend away from personal contact in the neighborhood and the decrease in time families spend at home are two of the essential ingredients that make communities ripe for crimes of opportunity, such as burglary.