Neighbourhood Watch: STN 1 South YarraRegion 1 Division 2 Stonnington, Victoria, Australia.
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Neighbourhood Watch: STN 1 South Yarra
Region 1 Division 2
Stonnington, Victoria, Australia.
You are here: Home>Newsletters>November 2003
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November, 2003 A scheme that relies on the eyes and ears of Victorians to prevent crime is turning 20. Street Beat THE suburban uprising that escalated into a national war against crime is taking up the fight on new fronts. Without much fanfare, Neighbourhood Watch has become the biggest and most durable community-based crime prevention program in the southern hemisphere. But the concept started by Victoria Police in a place called Kananook, which shares a postcode with Seaford, is now looking to new weapons and strategies to continue the battle against burglars, thieves and other villains. Older long-term residents have always been the mainstay of most Neighbourhood Watch programs, but organisers are deploying other resources to support the trusty "Dads Army" who have provided most of the foot soldiers. Crime prevention measures are now adapting not only to the ageing population and a decline in volunteerism, but to the growth of technology and the inner city revolution that has seen the arrival of thousands in the Melbourne CBD. When the Neighbourhood Watch pilot program started in 1983, Kananook was chosen because it was an average community containing about 600 homes and a light residential area. A police survey of householders found more than 80% considered crime a major problem. A public meeting in a local hall attracted 160. Twenty volunteered to be zone leaders and Neighbourhood Watch was born. It's difficult to measure the success of a strategy aimed at preventing crime, but the program that started small and spread has clearly been well received. There are now 1300 Neighbourhood Watch areas throughout Victoria, covering 956,000 homes across more than half the state. What began in a suburb most people had never heard of has spread to every state and territory. Former Chief Commissioner Mick Miller, now 76, this week recalled the introduction of the program in Victoria and his confidence that it would work. "Neighbourhood Watch is not a new idea,"he wrote in the Police Life magazine in March 1984. "Its origins stem from Saxon times in England. It is enshrined in the Statute of Winchester of 1825, as the system of ‘watch and ward.'" This back to basics approach in turning the clock back 700 years to find a strategy for crime prevention in the 20th century might seem strange in an age of high technology,"he wrote. "It's really an acknowledgment of the fact that in a free society, the police have always depended upon public cooperation - and always will." Perhaps not surprisingly, the program was introduced in the then chief's eastern suburbs neighbourhood in its early days. "My wife was a zone leader from 1988 -1998 - she used to make me deliver the newsletters,"he recalls. Mick Miller says his established middle-class neighbourhood is a good example of the need for the program to move with the times. When we moved here nearly 50 years ago, everybody was like us. They were young married couples building their own homes. You knew everybody, you borrowed from one another and watched out for each other's property. Now it's different. Whereas in those days there were extremely few old people about, now they're all old people in an area like this and there are very few young people about. We're all empty nesters." The need to move with the times has seen significant recent changes to Neighbourhood Watch. Pilot programs have been set up in three suburban areas with heavy populations of Vietnamese, Greek and Arabic residents. Another is aimed at businesses in a CBD block, and talks with high-rise residential developers and tertiary institutions will soon produce formal arrangements to extend Neighbourhood Watch boundaries. In the CBD, the usual letterbox distribution of newsletters will be replaced by electronic mail. These days the program doesn't rely on letterbox stickers or signs on the window to warn intending burglars that the neighbourhood is watching. Now people can log on to www.neighbourhoodwatch.com.au and take a computer-generated tour of a typical home to receive security and crime prevention advice. The Virtual House package was extended last year with the introduction of Virtual Car software. Neighbourhood Watch veteran Tom Newman shares Mr Miller 's concern about the ‘greying membership 'of the program. Mr Newman was the first Neighbourhood Watch area coordinator in the Kananook pilot program, then was the first district chairman and founding state president. He was awarded an Order of Australia in 1988 for his key role in the establishment of the program. Now 68, he still lives in the City of Frankston and is a local zone leader - and the longest serving Neighbourhood Watcher in Australia. "If we want the people of the future to be joining Rotary Clubs and Neighbourhood Watch, you've got to get them when they're younger. You've got to expose them to the rewards of being involved and to the satisfaction they can get out of helping people." Part of Mr Newman's legacy to the program is the eye that features on the Neighbourhood Watch logo. A local graphic artist created the emblem that put a human face to Neighbourhood Watch and the partnership it promoted, but it was a blank face. Tom Newman believes the inherent strength of the program remains the fact local police attend monthly meeting of residents. "Otherwise contact with police members usually involves bad news or sad news, and involves a negative connection rather than a positive one,"he says. He believes the original aim of educating the community about home security and property protection has been achieved but thinks more can be done. The Neighbourhood Watch structure, Mr Newman says, provides a perfect opportunity for police to teach the public about other developments in the areas of crime prevention and reduction, road safety and changes to the law. Victorian President for the last two years is former senior policeman Bill Horman. To describe Mr Horman as community-driven could be one of the understatements of the year. General manager of community affairs for Crown, he is also chairman of the Victorian Community Council Against Violence and the Melbourne Injury Prevention Committee. He helped set up the Melbourne City Safety Committee. He says the reason Neighbourhood Watch may appear to be ageing is because those who get involved, stay involved. At a recent gathering after the death of a Neighbourhood Watch area founder in Mulgrave, he met 46 of the original 50 signatories to the petition that led to the establishment of their area 18 years ago. He's certain, people who do get involved in their community feel more secure and more fulfilled, and enjoy a better quality of life than those who don't. After 32 years with Victoria Police, up to the rank of deputy commissioner, four years as police commissioner in Tasmania and three years in charge of investigations for the National Crime Authority, he believes strongly in the cause he's heading."All the crime statistics show that Victoria has the best crime figures in Australia and I don 't think it's unreasonable to say things like Neighbourhood Watch and Crime Stoppers contribute to the law enforcement effort." "And don't forget that prevention is better than cure. Prevention is better than detection." Geoff Wilkinson The Herald &Weekly Times ANAGRAMS Can you identify the places in and around South Yarra in the following anagrams: 1.A HOBART WINK STUNS ________________________ 2.RETARDANT GANGS _____________________ 3.HARKEN RAMPART _____________________ 4.ROYAL ARTY AIRBRUSH _______________________ 5.APHRODITE FALLS ___________________ 6.JOY FROM CAT ________________ 7.CROOK MAP ______________ 8.BRIG MODELLER _________________ 9.CARING SPENDERS ___________________ 10.CART PLANNER _________________ Place List Princes Gardens Prahran Market Como Park Morell Bridge Jam Factory South Yarra Library Hawksburn Station Alfred Hospital Pran Central Grattan Gardens Test of observation DON'T cheat! Because if you did, the test would be no fun. There are no tricks to the test. Read the sentence below and count the F's in that sentence. Count them ONLY ONCE. Do not go back and count them again. FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS. A person of average intelligence finds three of them. If you spotted four, you're above average. If you got five, you can turn your nose at most anybody. If you caught six, you are a genius. There is no catch. Many people forget the "OF"'s. The human brain tends to see them as V's and not F's. Next Meeting Disclaimer:
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Last modified 26 December 2003.