Published on Wednesday, December 30, 1992
© 1992 The Arizona Republic

I'd like to tell you about Block Watch in my neighborhood.

In 1990 our neighborhood organized the Fairview Place Citizens Association and promptly held our first neighborhood-wide Block Watch meeting for a standing-room-only crowd. According to official police deparment records, crime decreased dramatically thereafter.

In the fall of 1991, we sponsored another well-attended Block Watch meeting, and again crime decreased markedly. In fact, crime had decreased so much by the fall of this year that there was relatively little interest in having another Block Watch meeting. What for? It didn't look like we needed one.

Now, a few months later, it appears that we may have become complacent. We may have assumed that we could just relax and assume our job had been done. This has brought us an unfortunate lesson: Crime has increased sharply in the last few months.

However, because we already had a Block Watch network of residents in place here, when the crime situation became evident we've been able to re-mobilize our neighborhood in just a few hours. We have at least one captain for each of the eight blocks that make up Fairview Place. As neighborhood Block Watch captain, I was able to alert all these volunteers with only about a dozen phone calls, and they, in turn, could begin spreading the word about a new Block Watch meeting we scheduled this month.

As an organized neighborhood, we became aware of the recent crime trend quickly due to this strong network we've established here. Because of Block Watch and National Night Out, people have gotten to know each other and communicate. Because of our association, each block has the means to communicate with the others. News spreads rapidly within Fairview Place because we talk to each other, because we attend Block Watch meetings and Association meetings together. It is notable that our biggest annual celebration is National Night Out.

We fought crime in our neighborhood as an organization and reduced it. We may have become complacent, but because of our established organization we can -- and will -- reduce crime here. Block Watch works. We've seen the proof of that. We are proof of that.

Richard Donley Fox
Phoenix

Type of story: COMMUNITY VIEW / LETTER