Neighbors Twitter, Blog To Keep Criminals At Bay

By: AP | NBC4i.com
Published: August 11, 2009

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- 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.

Carrie Davis, staff council for the American Civil Liberties Union in Ohio, says block watch members who aren't trained by police should be cautious of overstepping legal boundaries. "You have a right to observe what's going on in the street, but that doesn't give you a right to go peer in your neighbor's window," Davis says. Twenty new block watch groups have sprouted since January in Columbus, where police Chief Walter Distelzweig had warned that as many as 300 officers could be laid off if a proposed citywide income tax increase failed. The levy passed Aug. 4. Anticipating a greater need for community involvement because of budget cuts, the Florida Crime Prevention Association says it has stepped up block watch training for law enforcement agencies to go out and train the public.

Four years ago, when the Old Oaks block watch was in its infancy, the crack of gunshots could be heard frequently in the neighborhood of brick homes with front porches on the outskirts of a crime-ridden part of Columbus. Now the streets are quieter, and crime mostly amounts to break-ins.

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Neighbors Twitter, Blog To Keep Criminals At Bay

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