Re-write your problem with more clarity

Smart Neighborhood Watch

October 25, 2017

Group 3

Literature Review

Neighborhood Watch programs tend to educate about the recent criminal activity that often occurs in residential areas and gives the knowledge, instructions, and ability to report crimes. These crimes include the crimes against residents, crimes against dwellings and other street crimes occurring in the watch area neighborhood watch enhance the communication with the local authorities through the installation of Neighborhood Watch programs. The law enforcement agencies have been able to establish good working relationships with surrounding communities. Training the residents in case of emergencies is carried out for neighborhood security in the event of a crisis. Neighborhood Watch teaches response tactics in case of critical situations. Neighborhood watch programs have increased surveillance within a neighborhood and have also been implemented to help local law enforcement.

Neighborhood watch programs also help decrease criminal opportunities. In the Neighborhood Watch programs, for a crime to happen, the criminal must already have the ability, desire and opportunity to commit a crime. To stop the willingness, decreasing the opportunity with preparedness, vigilance and surveillance is critical. Lastly, it encourages the community pride and involvement. Neighborhood Watch programs help individual think about oneself as part of a large community to enable the whole neighborhood as they would towards their own property which fosters higher vigilance towards one’s property. 

Neighborhood watch is not new to communities; it has been around since mid-nineties as a movement in United States and United Kingdom that seeks community involvement for crime reduction (Bennett et al., 2006, Xu Li et al., 2011), in which group of citizens devote some of their time to watch out their neighborhood (Xu Li et al., 2011). It has often been seen as one of the most prevalent methods of reducing crime (Bennett et al., 2006). Even though this “human-dominated neighborhood watch” has been implemented in over a quarter of UK population and in over 40% of US population (Bennett et al., 2006), it has been inconsistent and of limited effectiveness due to citizens’ unavailability, tiredness, distraction, and limited perception (Xu Li et al., 2011). Notably, although Bennett et al., (2006), who use a systematic review to examine the neighborhood effectiveness in crime reduction, find out that neighborhood watch was associated with 16% in crime reduction, they state that it is not relatively clear why this association exist. Given these limitations of human-dominated neighborhood watch, smart neighborhood watch can be seen as an alternative way of protecting communities by providing unattended and pervasive platforms that saves human resources and increases effectiveness and efficiency (Xu Li et al., 2011). It is worthwhile to mention that both smart and traditional neighborhood watches need to be implemented as a comprehensive package that includes public and police involvement (Bennett et al., 2006, Xu Li et al., 2011). Despite the factors, such as social disorganization, that lead to the dominance of one type of crime (violence or non-violence) in one neighborhood over others (Christopher et al., 2009), smart neighborhood would be able to detect both types of crimes more easily.

While human- neighborhood watch requires people to monitor and report suspicious activities (Bennett et al., 2006), smart neighborhood watch requires surveillance cameras that continuously monitor the surroundings to be installed in the neighborhood, and also these cameras need to be connected by wireless technologies to a service center “hosted by a trusted party” that monitor and react to suspicious behaviors (Xu Li et al., 2011). Because of this dependency of current smart neighborhood techniques on the service center, the aim of this research is to develop a mobile application that allows not only the services center but all participants in the community to monitor and react to any activity in an easy way.

  One area of concern is citizen engagement within a neighborhood.  Traditional neighborhood watch program require citizens in a community to come together to form a watch. These citizens step up to take on the role of being the “eyes” and “ears” of the neighborhood, reporting suspicious activity to authorities when detected.  Research has shown that many neighborhood watch programs struggle with that lack of participation of citizens.  These days, citizens are often times too busy to participate or have no interest in being a part of a neighborhood watch. “It is found that individuals who are older, unemployed, with high income, homeowners, and living in bigger households are more likely to be members of NWGs” (Kang, pg.207). If majority of citizens in a neighborhood do not fit this description, how will we motivate them to participate? There are two types of motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is internal motivation that comes from within such as being motivated by your values and beliefs. Extrinsic motivation is motivation that comes from the outside sources such as getting a monetary award. According to Lowndes et al CLEAR model, participation is most effective where citizens:

· Can do—have the resources and knowledge to participate;

· Like to—have a sense of attachment that reinforces participation;

· Enabled to—are provided with the opportunity for participation;

· Asked to—are mobilized through public agencies and civic channels;

· Responded to—see evidence that their views have been considered (Lowndes et al, pg.1)

Lowndes et al CLEAR model include both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. Having a smart neighborhood watch app can help increase both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, which will hopefully lead to increased participation

In addition to reducing incidents of burglary and robbery we also aim to increase the community’s participation in crime prevention. “Rosenbaum (1987) outlines five problematic assumptions underlying neighborhood watch problems (see Table 5.3)” (Lab, 2016). Rosenbaum believes that if either of the below assumptions will hinder an organization attempting to implement a neighborhood watch. In contrast to Assumption 1, many people do not live in areas that afford opportunities to participate.  In contrast to Assumption 2, “participation varies greatly based on demographic, neighborhood, and crime preventions factors” (Lab, 2016). In contrast to Assumption 3, it cannot be assumed (it is hoped) that immediate effects occur after interaction.  “Counter to Assumption 4 is the fact that maintaining crime prevention activity is a major problem for most organizations” (Lab, 2016). Once the area’s crime has been significantly reduced or eliminated, many programs lose momentum.

Other research also references types of motivation within a community. “The 2002 paper by Baston et al provides a framework of sources of motivation in prosocial communities.  Four possible motivations for participation from citizens include: egotism (emphasizes shellfish behavior), altruism (emphasizes sharing), collectivism (emphasizes connection to the community), and principlism (justice and social action)” (Violi, 761).  A three-part experiment was designed to investigate motives of users of a community neighborhood watch social networking website.  The focus of the experiment is on invitations to join the online neighborhood watch and how that users’ choice to join is dictated by the verbiage on the invitation. The verbiage on the invitation will correspond to one of the four motivations thus giving the researchers insight into the most common reason individuals choose to join the neighborhood watch. Insight into previous research on why individuals want to participate may help us when developing our application.

According to Schneider, “Establishing the right structures and processes to enable community residents to be meaningful partners and equitably participate alongside serves and agencies has proven challenging in many neighborhood regeneration efforts” (Schneider, 280). We aim to leverage where we are as a culture of smartphone users and incorporate the use of smartphones with participation in a neighborhood watch program. Mankoff, et al. found that “strong participation in social movements is most likely when activities can be easily integrated into daily life”. The smart neighborhood app will make neighborhood watch more convenient, efficient, and easier thus also leading to increased participation.

References

C.D. Baston, N. Ahmad, and J.A. Tsang. Four Motives for community involvement. Journal of Social Issues, 58(3):429-445, 2002.

N. Violi, B. Shneiderman, A. Hanson, and P. Rey.  Motivation for Participation in Online Neighborhood Watch Communities: An Empirical Study Involving Invitation Letters. IEEE Computer Society,760-765, 2011.

Lowndes, Vivien & Pratchett, Lawrence. (2006). CLEAR: Understanding Citizen Participation in Local Government–and How to Make it Work Better.

Kang, J. H. (2011). Participation in the community social control, the neighborhood watch groups: Individual- and neighborhood-related factors.

J. Mankoff, D. Matthews, S.R. Fussell, and M. Johnson. (2007). Leveraging social networks to motivate individuals to reduce their ecological foot- prints.

Schneider, Stephen. (2015). Crime Prevention: Theory and Practice. CRC Press.

Lab, Steven. (2016). Crime Prevention: Approaches, Practices, and Evaluation.