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  1. About Neighbourhood Watch

    The first Neighbourhood Watch scheme in Britain started in the early 1980’s and has since grown to 150,000 watches covering 6 million households and roughly 10 million people.

    Neighbourhood Watch is the coming together of residents and the police with support from various authorities such the local council and Police Authority. Its strength comes from the community looking out for each other involving simple, neighbourly tasks:

    Reporting suspicious activity to the police 
    Sharing information on recent local crimes with neighbours (increasing vigilance & crime prevention awareness) 
    Checking on vulnerable neighbours after an incident (creating a caring community) 
    Discussing ongoing concerns with neighbours 

    A working watch scheme creates a stronger community and has the potential to lower crime, or if you are already enjoying a low level of crime it can help to keep it that way. The power of Neighbourhood Watch can also be used when a community wishes to tackle a specific problem. By calling a meeting and inviting the police a community can speak with one voice representing everyone in the street, estate or area. This coming together will help the police receive a clear understanding of the issue and will work with the community to resolve the problem and bring in other authorities to help if necessary. 

    Home Watch is a similar type of watch scheme and is used in place of Neighbourhood Watch in certain parts of the country. 

    Watch schemes can be substantially enhanced if OWL is used to manage all of your watches online. OWL allows coordinators to easily administrate their own watches and swiftly pass on information to neighbours while the police can quickly send out important messages using additional methods of communication. If your watch scheme is interested in using OWL please mention it to your Neighbourhood Watch officer at your local police station .

    Finding your Neighbourhood Watch

    To find out if you are in a Neighbourhood Watch scheme in Hertfordshire use the Watch Finder tool (www.owl.co.uk/watchfinder.htm). It will ask for your postcode to find the nearest active watch to your location.