Neighbourhood Watch
Definition
A scheme in which residents of a street or small area agree to watch out for suspicious activity, report it to the police, and mark or register property, usually coordinated by a volunteer street or area coordinator.
Related terms
- Beat System
- The division of a police jurisdiction into fixed local patrol areas, each assigned to an officer expected to build familiarity with residents;...
- Community-Based Crime Prevention
- Any prevention approach that relies on residents themselves, rather than police or situational design alone, to reduce crime and disorder in a...
- Community Policing
- A policing model that builds sustained partnerships between officers and residents through foot patrols, neighbourhood liaison, and joint problem identification. Emphasises prevention...
- Exclusionary Surveillance
- Watching or reporting that treats unfamiliar people, particularly on the basis of race, age, or class, as inherently suspicious, turning a crime-reporting...
- Selection Bias
- A distortion that arises when the group being studied is not a random sample of the wider population; in Neighbourhood Watch research,...