Pubdate: Fri, 05 Mar 2004 Source: Bradenton Herald (FL) Copyright: 2004 Bradenton Herald Contact: http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradentonherald/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/58 Author: Aimee Juarez, Herald Staff Writer BALLARD 'WATCH' SLASHED CRIME MANATEE - Drug peddling riddled the Bradenton neighborhood Janean Martin moved into almost two years ago. To bring the illegal activity to a stop, Martin and her neighbors in the Ballard Park community banded together 18 months ago under the Neighborhood Watch crime prevention program. According to Bradenton Police Officer Linda Stoops of the agency's crime prevention unit, the group has managed to silence crime with the aid of Bradenton Police in that short amount of time. Residents met with Stoops and Lt. Ed Kish to take the crime-related pulse of their neighborhood, which runs from Sixth Avenue West to 14th Street West and is bordered by Ninth Avenue West and Wares Creek. Today, about 70 residents from 43 homes are members of the area's Neighborhood Watch program, an 80 to 85 percent participation rate. According to Martin, nothing gets by them. "Our neighborhood is a unit - it's a team - and we've always taken a team approach to what we do," she said. "Our crime watch makes all of us feel safer. We feel we're protecting ourselves and others around us. More eyes are better than few." That's been the aim of Neighborhood Watch since the national crime prevention program was first created 32 years ago - to bring local law enforcement agencies and the citizens they protect together to combat crime. Eric L. Schultz, project director of the National Neighborhood Watch Program, said the project first started in 1972 after the tumultuous end of the 1960s made crime rates soar. Since then, a reliance on residents to patrol their neighborhoods for suspicious individuals or cars, potential break-ins or robbery threats has helped law enforcement agencies nationwide narrow in on local crime and better understand the communities they serve. "There's never been a study done to correlate Neighborhood Watch with crime reduction, but we've gotten many stories relayed to us from police departments, sheriff's offices and community groups who've said the program has been very effective," he said. "The goal," Schultz continued, "is to bring the community together - to increase communication between neighbors and between citizens and law enforcement. The program helps do just that by developing a good line of communication." According to Schultz, how the program is run is solely up to local law enforcement agencies, and the size of a Neighborhood Watch depends upon how many residents want to start one. Budget restraints and cutbacks are sometimes the reason why some agencies don't offer the program, which law enforcement officials said only requires a "minimal" portion of their budgets. The Manatee County Sheriff's Office, Bradenton Police and Palmetto Police all offer the crime prevention program to residents. The sheriff's office invests about $389,719 in personnel and operating expenses to run its crime prevention division, which oversees programs like Neighborhood Watch. Bradenton Police and Palmetto Police did not provide the Herald with a breakdown on funding for their crime prevention units. Stoops said smaller law enforcement agencies, like Bradenton and Palmetto police departments, usually operate on "shoestring" budgets. As a result, they need to stick to the basics with crime prevention programs like Neighborhood Watch. Purchasing 50 Neighborhood Watch signs, for example, costs about $600, Stoops said. The sheriff's office oversees between 30 to 50 active Neighborhood Watch programs. The Bradenton Police Department oversees about 15 groups, and Palmetto Police oversees about five or six. It's not uncommon for Neighborhood Watch programs to become inactive and temporarily disband once a crime is solved or a culprit is caught, which accounts for the small number of groups, according to Stoops and Palmetto Police Sgt. Scott Tyler. "They kind of come and go," Tyler said. "People start feeling safe and it starts to wane. We encourage them to stay active because the value of crime watch is incalculable." Manatee County Sheriff's Deputy Al Demaio and Jake Parrish, supervisor of the crime prevention division, handle the Neighborhood Watch program through the sheriff's office. Residents undergo three 45-minute workshops on crime prevention safety - - an introduction to Neighborhood Watch, residential safety and a third on personal safety, frauds and scams. The Bradenton Police and Palmetto Police programs follow a similar training structure. In addition to the standard workshops, the sheriff's office crime prevention team also visits homes to make sure they are safe from intruders and have additional sub-programs to increase safety. Under the door-hanger program, neighbors notify a resident if their home has been made vulnerable to an intruder, such as by leaving a garage door open. Notices are left on doors in the hopes that the resident becomes more savvy in crime prevention. "There are three elements to committing a crime - desire, ability and opportunity. We can't do anything about the first two, but we can do something to make it a little bit more aggravating to the burglar," Demaio said. Although concrete statistics reflecting the effectiveness of Neighborhood Watch aren't readily available, law enforcement officers said they've seen it work day after day. "Neighborhood Watch is really a simple idea," Manatee Sheriff Charlie Wells said. "People used to do that all the time, but as we moved into a much more complex world, neighbors in a lot of places just quit talking to one another; it became so impersonal. We take them back to that day and ask them to observe what goes on in their community, and it works." INFORMATION Neighborhood Watch programs are based upon police jurisdiction. For more information on starting a Neighborhood Watch program in your community, contact: * The Manatee County Sheriff's Office Crime Prevention Division at 747- 3011, ext. 2500. * Bradenton Police Officer Linda Stoops at 708-6273, ext. 393. * Palmetto Police Sgt. Scott Tyler at 721-2000, ext. 360. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake