Police to review Neighbourhood Watch ’Hood watch being watched

Andrew Mathieson
A PROMISED police review of Neighbourhood Watch next year has put the crime prevention program on notice.
Police have scaled back their control over the program that started in 1983 since the Independent reported a raft of changes late last year.
Victoria police strategic services superintendent Tony De Ridder told the Independent that Geelong police were “not really getting a return” on its investment from an outdated Neighbourhood Watch program.
“What we have actually got is the equivalent of a 24-hour police station in resources,” De Ridder said.
“It has been dedicated to just coordinating Neighbourhood Watch – it’s a big commitment.”
Neighbourhood Watch has been forced to amalgamate many of its smaller number of Geelong branches to cover the entire region to satisfy police resources.
Supt De Ridder, who is Chief Commissioner Simon Overland’s Neighbourhood Watch appointment, said a review in a further 18 months would decide whether or not the program had been a “good use of our time”.
Police have provided Neighbourhood Watch branches past crime statistics, but have moved towards advising communities of crime trends instead.
“Providing information about retrospective time isn’t something that we think does a lot to help the community in anyway,” Supt De Rider said.
“It doesn’t make the community feel safer.”
It has prompted State Opposition leader Ted Ballieu to make an election pledge to restore access to crime statistics, including figures on “street-by-street” data.
Mr Ballieu said the government was denying residents in the Geelong region access to vital crime statistics.
“(It’s) part of John Brumby’s plan to hide the truth about the types of crime affecting communities,” he said.
Geelong’s Neighbourhood Watch police coordinator Senior Constable Andrew King said street-by-street crime statistics “are not assisting us with what we are investigating”.
“The program needs to show that it can support what the police are trying to do for the community rather than us tending to prop it up a little bit,” Snr Const King said.
Program coordinators told the Independent last year scrapping statistical breakdowns would leave smaller communities in the dark.
Snr Const King understood that some in the community were “resistant to change”.
“It won’t be that we won’t be telling them anything, it will be telling them things we think are relevant and we’ll be asking for assistance,” he said.
“That’s the sticking point for some of the people in Neighbourhood Watch is that we are not giving them crime statistics and they think we’re walking away from them.”