What is a Neighbourhood Watch?
Want to live in a safer community? Neighbourhood Watch groups (NHW) comprising local residents play an important role in preventing and combatting crime by working hand-in-hand with the South African Police Service (SAPS), Municipal Law Enforcement and Security Companies.
“Neighbourhood watches are the eyes and ears of the police; they know what is happening on the ground before the police do,” explained a spokesperson for the Western Cape Department of Community Safety (DOCS). He said offenders will more than likely be deterred if they are aware that local residents are on the alert and ready to report suspicious behaviour and this is especially true if the NHW has a CCTV Camera network.
The police don’t have the manpower to do everything and so the Neighbourhood Watch aims to help people protect themselves and their properties and to reduce the fear of crime by means of improved home security, greater vigilance, accurate reporting of suspicious incidents and fostering a community spirit as well as tackling new forms of crime such as cybercrime.
So in summary, a Neighbourhood Watch is one of the most effective ways for residents to reduce crime in their communities. Also, it assists in protecting property, reducing car break-ins, house burglary and attacks on your employees. An effective NHW will help in regaining suburbs from criminals and goes a long way to neutralise the criminal’s ability to conduct their activities.
HRF (HRF) Neighbourhood Watch
The HRF Neighbourhood Watch geographic scope covers the Hunters Home, Rexford and Fisherhaven suburbs and essentially empowers everyday citizens to assist the law enforcement agencies to prevent and respond to crime and violence in those communities by being a member of the NHW.
The Neighbourhood Watch (NHW) was formed some eight years ago when crime (particularly house break-ins) was fairly rampant and action needed to be taken by residents to aid SAPS and Allsound to bring the number of incidents under control. In addition to giving advice to residents, we followed the traditional approach of NHW members patrolling in cars during the evening and nighttime hours along with regular public information meetings. This approach was very successful and resulted in a significant drop in criminal activity. However, a downside of being successful is that residents don’t see the same degree of necessity when it comes to patrolling at, say, midnight or 2.00 am with an inevitable fall in the number of patrollers.
So the NHW committee had to seek another way of identifying suspicious individuals or behaviour. One way we do this is by the deployment of an integrated CCTV camera network at strategic and known entry and exit points used by potential criminals.
Quite obviously the management and maintenance of this network incur cost whether it be for the monthly monitoring fee, additional cameras, replacement of old cameras, etc. So the NHW Committee inaugurated an HRF CrimeWatch group that charges its members a small annual fee to cover all these costs. It is an NHW member’s decision whether to join the CrimeWatch group or not but the monitoring by the cameras is ONLY done for members and their residences.
Please go to HRF Members CrimeWatch to learn more about the advantages of becoming a member and how it will vastly improve your peace of mind whenever you think of crime.