Neighbors unite to keep crime at bay

Block watches can help police fight crime.
By JEANNE STARMACK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
AUSTINTOWN -- The captain of the Wedgewood area Neighborhood Watch knows that the ranks of the township police department are thin.
"When you have 37 men, you have three shifts, and all they're doing is emergencies," said Carol Martin. So, she said, the neighborhoods are vulnerable.
"People don't realize you aren't safe anywhere -- even in the suburbs."
So what's a neighborhood to do? How about giving the police a hand when it comes to fighting crime. That, said Martin, is what a block watch does.
Its members aren't vigilantes, she said. They don't go out into the streets and confront suspicious people. But by simply being aware of who belongs on their street and taking the time to look out for one another, they can make their neighborhoods safer.
There are now only two areas of the township that have active block watches, Martin said. One of them is Wedgewood's, which has been active for about a year, she said. The second is a block watch in the Woodland Trace area that has been active for about six months, said member Andrew Douglas, who helps coordinate the Neighborhood Watch program for the Austintown 20/20 Committee, a committee that works for community betterment.
Watching out for neighbors
Douglas said that neighborhoods might have specific problems on which to focus. Woodland Trace's is speeders, he said. He also said that recently, neighbors were able to notify one another about scam e-mails being sent.
"We are the eyes and ears of the neighborhood," he said, with members first calling police about something suspicious, then calling one another.
Martin said she became captain of the Wedgewood group when the 20/20 committee asked her to start it with a group of her neighbors who were already organized to revive Wedgewood Park, a 17-acre area in the neighborhood that had gone to ruin over the years.
She said the group has had about five big meetings over the past year, which coordinate with park business. The biggest reason the Wedgewood block watch took off, she believes, is because of a drug house on Ayrshire Drive.
She said the neighbors were up in arms because of the activity at the house. They began taking license numbers and watching for patterns of when people arrived. They gave the information to the police.
"We became a nuisance. It wasn't good to go there," she said.
The drug house has since been shut down.
Reaching out
Douglas said there are about 14 other areas that are beginning to develop block watches. But Martin said interest in the block watch program is largely confined to the older areas of the township. It's been hard to persuade younger couples to come to the meetings, because they work and don't have a lot of spare time, she said.
She said the program organizers plan to visit PTA meetings to reach those people.
Martin said being part of a block watch isn't difficult.
"One person is not calling 60 people," she said. "If they see something, they call their [watch] captain and police."
She said the block watch then uses phone trees, with one person calling 10 other people. She said the program preaches "pay attention."
Douglas said the police department has an information line that's updated every week by Lt. Mark Durkin, who works with the community on crime prevention. The line updates people on rashes of crimes in their neighborhoods. The number is (330) 270-5108.
Douglas also said that anyone who wants more information on the Neighborhood Watch program can call him at (330) 799-0558 or (330) 502-6241.