Ross Sheil, Staff Reporter

With the police estimating that half of Jamaica's 612 neighbourhood watch schemes are lying dormant, they are recommending that schemes diversify into social programmes to ensure they do not fade as crime falls.

Police officers, watch members and other stakeholders pored over ways in which to strengthen the schemes during a video conference, at the United States Embassy in St. Andrew, yesterday, with Carmen Caldwell, executive director of Citizen's Crime Watch of Miami Dade County.

Crime reduction

Sergeant Basil Richards, sub-officer in charge of neighbourhood watch schemes in the Community Relations Division of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), pointed to the once violence-prone North St. Andrew community of Grants Pen as an example. It was only natural, Sgt. Richards said, for watch schemes in such areas which have experienced crime reduction to lose focus.

"Watch schemes will have to start thinking of themselves as being there not only to focus on crime, but also social conditions which can of course contribute to crime," he said. "That is why we encourage them to focus on things like garbage collection. What they need to do is to call the relevant agencies and discuss the needs in their communities. That is how they can always stay involved," he said.

According to John Bullock, chairman of East Kingston Neighbourhood Watch, which consists of a mixture of middle class and deprived communities, by its very nature a scheme can be challenging.

Looked down upon

"We are coming from a situation where neighbourhood watch groups are looked down upon simply as informer groups," he said. "So we are not only dealing with crime prevention, but also involving the social well-being of residents."

He said that for the past year his scheme had been inviting agencies to come and address the community, including the Ministry of Health, the Fire Department, the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management and the United Nations Development Programme.