Community Perspective
Fairbanks Neighborhood Watch kicking into high gear
Published Sunday, May 4, 2008
Hello, Fairbanks. As we finally (yes, finally!) move into spring, there are a series of efforts underway that I believe will significantly affect the climate of crime and neighborhood livability here in Fairbanks. In order to try to enlist as many volunteers and neighborhood participants as possible, I am working to spread the word regarding these efforts.
The primary program that I would like to address is Neighborhood Watch, whose organization and implementation is being accomplished through our partner organization, Volunteers in Policing. Neighborhood Watch has had its starts and stops over the past few years, with some earlier organizational efforts being hampered by a lack of coordinating staff, gaps in program funding, and — in many neighborhoods — a lack of interest by residents.
Through a combination of efforts led by the Volunteers in Policing, United Way of the Tanana Valley, our local legislative delegation, and our Local Emergency Planning Commission, we have worked to secure and pool together several small pots of grant funding, allowing for necessary coordination and staff support to field an ongoing, sustainable Neighborhood Watch program.
While initial efforts are primarily geared towards the establishment of such groups in individual and clustered neighborhoods for purposes of crime prevention and information-sharing, the long-term goal is to use the established network of block captains and their respective neighborhood networks as the delivery mechanism for ongoing crime-prevention efforts, methamphetamine education and awareness training, emergency preparation and neighborhood disaster response training, etc.
Some of the most visible organizational efforts are slated for our central Fairbanks Weed and Seed area this spring. In order to kick-start neighborhood involvement, our police department has worked with the Volunteers in Policing and United Way Weed and Seed site coordinator to carve this area into four distinct districts. Our VIPs have been working to solicit interested neighbors and potential block captains to start neighborhood groups in each of these districts, with the hope that all quadrants of the involved area will eventually be covered.
For those who live outside of the Weed and Seed area, don’t despair! Our VIPs are ready and willing to respond to any neighborhood in Fairbanks that wishes to develop its own Neighborhood Watch. Recent such successes include active groups in the Westgate/Taku area of West Fairbanks, and the Gateway neighborhood (Lacey/Noble/Eielson Streets) in South Fairbanks.
In conjunction with these efforts, the Neighborhood Restoration Committee of project Weed-and-Seed has accomplished the legwork necessary for the implementation of our local graffiti abatement project. This program (also continued under the auspices of the VIP program) provides a hotline to report graffiti as well as teams and cleanup materials to quickly remove it. For local businesses and individuals who want to assist in the monitoring and clean-up of their own properties, our VIPs can provide information and updates regarding some of the latest and most effective clean-up products available.
Lastly, I’m very pleased to announce that our police department has recently promoted an additional detective, as authorized through this year’s Fairbanks city budget, to partner with a patrol investigator and form a dedicated two-person Property Crimes Unit within our Detective Division. This team will be working closely with all of our local law enforcement agencies and our local Crime Stoppers, to address serial burglaries and other serious property crimes in Fairbanks. In addition to our regular Neighborhood Watch program, our Property Crimes Unit will actively assist and participate in the development of a Business Watch program, whereby increased information-sharing networks can be developed for particular sectors of our business community, (i.e. a construction/building trades group, hotel-motel group, banking/financial group, restaurant group, etc.) who can then be quickly informed regarding targeted scams, recent spates of similar thefts, etc.
As is most often the case, active citizen involvement is the key to success in such efforts. Ideally, these programs should all be starting at the grassroots level, with any department/agency providing the levels of support necessary to meet neighborhood expectations. I’m hopeful that our area residents will want to take an active part in these efforts.
Residents who are interested in forming a Neighborhood Watch may call VIP Programs Coordinator Lorna Weese at 450-6518. Those wishing to report graffiti can call 450-6518 or e-mail graffiticleanup@gmail.com.
Daniel Hoffman is chief of the Fairbanks Police Department.
Community Discussion
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I wonder if the lack of interest from residents in Neighborhood Watch has to do with its being essentially reactive and enemy-focused.
It reacts to the presence of criminal (and suspicious) behavior. This means that residents of any neighborhood lacking significant criminal behavior will not feel motivated to start Neighborhood Watch. And neighborhoods with high crime tend to be areas where residents enjoy the least social capital -- the least density of human social connections -- so they have the least chance of forming a cooperative, self-sustaining group.
Also, I wonder if the focus on "looking out for bad guys" is something that people can sustain only for a short time. Maintaining vigilant suspicion has got to take its mental toll on people, and after too long they can't have the energy for it. If so, Neighborhood Watch creates its own negative feedback and sows the seeds of its own destruction.
What programs could we, as a city or as a borough, facilitate so that neighbors could have something *positive* to work for? What could have the same effect (deterring crime) yet (1) aim for something positive, like "community building", rather than something negative, like "a lack of crime", and (2) create the *positive* feedback of activities and effects that people want more of?
When people have strong ties and mutual trust within their neighborhood, some of the functions of Neighborhood Watch are taken care of without all the active coordination. For example, a strange noise will bring several people out of their doors to look. Then (1) those neighbors will tell other neighbors, and (2) potential wrongdoers will in time recognize that this is an unsafe place to commit crimes, since so many people with an interest in the neighborhood have their eyes on the street.
Could we use neighborhood clean-up days? Resident-driven neighborhood planning? Neighborhood councils with power to bargain with government for improvements?
In any case, neighbors need multiple informal ways to communicate with each other if they're to keep up with what new or questionable activity is going on. When our residential neighborhoods are stripped of meaningful destinations -- places you want to visit that *aren't* home -- we miss out on opportunities to connect with our neighbors and watch our streets. And when we don't have forums for creating trusting, supportive relationships with those near us, isolation, apathy, and crime will thrive:
http://fairbankspedestrian.wordpress.com...
--Paul Adasiak
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