by: JARREL WADE World Staff Writer
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Whether it’s a suspicious man with stolen property in front of her house, a suspicious vehicle down the street or a home burglary in progress, Donna Lee knows what to do. She’s been trained.
Lee, 59, is a block captain in her Maxwell Neighborhood Association’s Alert Neighbors program and has watched crime in her neighborhood drop significantly during the past year as she and others in the neighborhood actively sought training and then trained others on how to spot suspicious activity and correctly report it to authorities.
They found the help they were looking for at the Crime Commission, a Tulsa organization that has educated and raised awareness about crime for more than 30 years.
Executive Director Carol Bush said calls to the Crime Commission have gone up by 50 percent since police layoffs as concerned residents look for help starting an Alert Neighbors program in their neighborhood.
“We’ve had a tremendous increase in requests,” Bush said. “Crime is hitting all four areas of town. There are no boundaries.”
Alert Neighbors is a program that teaches residents to keep an eye on criminal activity in their neighborhood and gives those residents a guide on how to work together to reduce crime in general.
“Bad guys don’t like to be watched,” Bush said.
Constant ebb and flow
Through the Alert Neighbors program, Bush said, active groups have seen a high rate of success at reducing crime in their areas, but group activity goes up and down as crime goes up and down in a neighborhood.
“If a group lets their guard down, crime will go up and Alert Neighbors becomes important again,” she said. “There’s a constant ebb and flow with Alert Neighbors.”
Lee, who helped start the Alert Neighbors program in her neighborhood near Yale Avenue and Pine Street about a year ago, said crime has dramatically decreased and her neighbors have become more active as they see the program has helped.
Using the Tulsa World’s Crime Tracker database to compare all police reports in the Maxwell neighborhood before Alert Neighbors began there to the same month a year later, records show 45 crime reports were made in the neighborhood in December 2008.
In December 2009, there were 31 total crime reports in the neighborhood, which extends from Admiral Boulevard north to Pine Street and from Yale Avenue to Sheridan Avenue, showing a decrease in crime of more than 30 percent in those two months.
Getting started
Bush said there are about 750 active Alert Neighbors programs in Tulsa and some have more success than others.
When a group calls the Crime Commission at 585-5209 to start an Alert Neighbors program, the organization sends them a packet of information on the program and then schedules a “first meeting” with the group to educate the members on how to help burglar-proof their homes, deter would-be robbers from finding easy targets and effectively assist police in the event of a crime, Bush said.
Alert Neighbors also encourages groups to create phone and e-mail lists for neighbors and to establish block captains, who can go through special training and be a central contact for others in the neighborhood.
The Crime Commission said they send out about 450 information packets about Alert Neighbors every year, and most groups take the next step to have a first meeting, Bush said.
“We get huge attention when something bad is going on,” she said.
Filling in the gaps
Despite numerous active neighborhood groups that have participated in the Alert Neighbors program, Bush said there are gaps in Tulsa where criminals have embedded themselves.
In some neighborhoods, people are even too scared to begin a neighborhood watch program for fear they would be targeted, she said.
“They’re afraid,” Bush said. “That’s why they don’t want to bring attention to themselves.”
Also, some Alert Neighbors programs just don’t take off because of a lack of participation, she said.
“The neighborhoods that are most successful are where 10 or more people are involved,” Bush said.
“Bad guys just don’t like to be watched.”
Jarrel Wade 581-8367
jarrel.wade@tulsaworld.com
