Editorial | Reviving neighbourhood watch

There isn’t an easy way to revive Jamaica’s jaded, and nearly spent, neighbourhood watch movement. It won’t happen by haranguing young people about the lack of involvement in the community organisations.

But, combined, the ideas of Charmaine Shand, an acting commissioner of the police, and Asha Mwendo, the president of the National Neighbourhood Watch Movement, are likely to achieve far more than most.

ACP Shand, without applying the label, emphasised community-based policing as a way of building trust, with the potential spinoff of rekindling interest in organisations like neighbourhood watch groups. Dr Mwendo appreciates, however, that whatever else happens, resuscitating the movement will be a hard grind.

“....I don’t want to be a title or a tagline,” Dr Mwendo, a psychologist, told The Gleaner. “It is action.”

We hope that Dr Mwendo and ACP Shand gain traction in their efforts, including, where necessary, convincing policymakers and other higher-ups of the merits of their ideas. For the neighbourhood watch movement is a potentially significant ally in the battle against crime in Jamaica.

Called by various names around the world, neighbourhood watch groups are essentially residents working with law enforcement agencies to reduce crime and make their community safer. Often, their members share information with each other and/or the police about unusual or suspicious activities in their communities. In some cases they may integrate their private surveillance systems and operate warning signals.

Formal neighbourhood watch groups have operated in Jamaica since 1987. More than 700 of them are registered with the police’s Safety and Security Branch (SSB), which ACP Shand runs. However, of the registered groups fewer than half are active. Their members are mostly older senior citizens.

DISTRUST AND FEAR

There are no studies of why support for the movement has waned, or why only older folk continue to embrace the initiative, which remains popular in many countries. In the United States, for instance, USAonWatch, the national organisation, says that there are over 25,000 active groups across America. It has more than a million volunteers on its register. In the United Kingdom, the movement claims over 2.3 million householder members.

The reasons for the organisation’s slump in Jamaica are likely to be many and varied. It is almost certain, though, that they will include two overlapping causes for many people’s retreat from civic engagement – distrust and fear. In this case, the distrust is of the police, and the fear is that their involvement in anti-crime initiatives will make them the targets of criminals. Ironically, it is the police who many people fear will leak the information.

These perceptions of the police, the authorities generally claim, are exaggerated. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that at a church service last week to mark the 35th anniversary of the neighbourhood watch movement, the island’s police chief, Antony Anderson, complained of the lack of selflessness among the island’s youth.

“Focus more on what you can do for others and what has to be done for you will be taken care of,” the commissioner said.

Mr Anderson’s observation may indeed be correct. But ACP Shand’s observation about her own experiences and what inspires trust in communities has greater resonance. Close community-police relations, she said, were key to enhancing safety in communities.

ACP Shand drew on her own experience as the divisional commander in the south-eastern parish of St Thomas, where close community-police relations contributed to a 65 per cent decline in homicides in the division. “I never forget that,” she said. “... There were persons who had confidence in me.”

FIRST LINE OF DEFENCE

While there have been sporadic efforts of community-policing initiatives, such as the effort in the St Andrew community of Grants Pen in the early 2000s, Jamaica’s constabulary has never, over the long-term, sustained these initiatives. The force complains of an insufficiency of resources, especially manpower, to keep the projects going. Indeed, the relationship between communities and the police usually turn on the personality or the philosophy of the divisional head, as in the case of Ms Shand, or the station commander, rather than the dictates of overarching policy.

Given her place among the police’s senior management, perhaps ACP Shand’s perspectives will find its way into sustainable policy, and, ultimately, in the fostering of the level of trust conducive to the reinvigoration of the neighbourhood watch movement. But that alone won’t be sufficient – especially in the short-term. That is why we welcome Dr Mwendo’s declaration that she is working hard with communities and the police for the revival of the movement.

Neighbourhood watches can be a first line of defence against crime and keeping communities safe. But creatively used, if there is trust, they can be of even greater value to the constabulary and the country. For instance, in the right circumstances, their members can be volunteers at police stations, answering telephones, helping with reception services and, with appropriate supervision, recording complaints and other statements. More police officers would be relieved to do the job for which they are trained: preventing and detecting crime.