The Importance of Good Neighbors

Message From the President and CEO

By Alfonso E. Lenhardt

Last year at this time, preliminary FBI data pointed to a nationwide decline in violent crime for the first half of 2007. Now I am pleased to be able to report that violent crime was down for the entire year.

Those of us engaged in crime prevention can claim credit for helping to move this needle, but for just a brief moment. We must stay focused and keep our eye on the ball and not let up on our crusade to prevent crime for even an instant. The cost of crime in human terms alone is more than what we as a society can bear.

One tenet of crime prevention is watching out and helping out. In our hectic lives today, we tend to focus inwardly, on our everyday concerns. But we must reach out to our fellow citizens to ensure the safety of our communities. Indeed, if it weren’t for neighbors helping neighbors to keep their communities safe, we wouldn’t be making any progress in reducing crime at all. It’s the Neighborhood Watch group, the Block Watch group, the senior citizen who keeps an eye on a neighbor’s house while he is out of town, the Girl Scout who helps seniors with their grocery shopping in an unsafe neighborhood that helps to keep crime down. It’s the teens from the youth center who paint out graffiti and clean up the parks who make it clear that the neighborhood is home to honest citizens and that drug dealers and thieves aren’t welcome. It’s community policing—the officer on the beat who knows the neighborhood and its residents—who keeps crime down, because the citizens know and trust him and he knows immediately when something is amiss.

Another aspect of crime prevention is helping law enforcement. We must partner with law enforcement to drive crime down. Law enforcement can often provide the education and training that will help individuals and groups serve their communities and organize citizens so that they are familiar with the techniques most useful to keeping crime at bay. And watching out and helping out is one of those techniques!

We have a rich heritage of watching out and helping out in this country. Back in colonial days, town watchmen patrolled the street, calling out that “All is well” as they proceeded down each cobbled lane, ringing a bell as they went. When it wasn’t well, they had lots of support from the nearby citizenry.

This Crime Prevention Month, Celebrate Safe Communities takes center stage. This new initiative, a partnership of NCPC and the National Sheriffs’ Association, supported by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, has already been an outstanding success. From Miami-Dade, FL, to Mendocino, CA, to Hennepin County, MN, more than 150 local groups of citizens have organized events featuring some aspect of crime prevention or community safety, most in partnership with their local law enforcement agency. Never before has there been such a simultaneous partnership of neighbors working with neighbors. What wonderful events! My heartfelt thanks and congratulations go out to every American involved. You have amply proven that when neighbors work with neighbors, good things can happen.