Third, community-based security ensures local trust, participation and empowerment that forms the backbone for reducing crime and improving the quality of life for housing communities.
Such security tactics promote behaviours that encourage feelings of ownership, mark out property boundaries and arrange for clean-ups of public spaces – known strategies for making an area less attractive to crims, which have the added benefit of discouraging bad behaviour.
Invest in a Security System
Investing in a security system is a great idea for your own home, for the peace of mind, and also for any businesses you are involved with, as prospective buyers will be attracted to your organisation by the security it provides. Several insurance companies offer reduced prices for home security systems because these make it less likely that harmful events (such as burglary) will happen, thereby reducing insurance companies’ payouts. Keep your community safe and improve the quality of life takes hard work and is well-planned in advance but by having an excellent battery-powered strategy based on trust, at the centre of it all, not only will both increase but the positive effects will spread throughout. Communities must engage with one another, and get together to share their issues and needs before a community-based strategy can be implemented. Locally derived strategies deal with local problems which are not easily resolved unless community members themselves, along with some input from businesses and law enforcement, are at the heart of the action.
Create a Neighborhood Watch
With an increasing amount of crime being reported nationwide, many property owners are beginning to look for extra security measures and are setting up Neighborhood organisations known as Neighbourhood Watch groups, a means of keeping local communities and police departments communicating as budget cuts leave police forces with more gaps. Correctly planned and put to use these groups can go a long way towards keeping people safe.
Groups that offer continuing education to the watch members, such as workshops on what to look for suspicious behaviour, help keep members engaged. In addition, workshops should teach volunteers how to report theincidents.
Make sure that this is clearly communicated and enforced: all residents have to be on board with a strict zero tolerance policy. When they see or hear problems, they cannot take it upon themselves to ‘deal’ with the issue. If it relates to law enforcement, they must involve law enforcement.
Organize a Crime Watch
Stakeholders can decrease criminal activity in the residential loking glass by establishing a neighborhood watch. Contact your home owners association or law enforcement agency to see if a group already exists and for meeting times; as a volunteer you could become a patroller! Citizens can easily gather information about crimes committed in their local area by reading newspapers and local reports, interviewing residents who have witnessed crimes first-hand in their neighbourhood or by visiting police department to collect information on crime statistics of their community. But many Neighborhood Watch groups take their mission even further, diverting members’ attention away from neighbourly watchfulness toward disaster preparation, emergency response and terrorism awareness training.
Encourage Residents to Report Suspicious Activity
Residents are an invaluable line of defence in keeping communities safe. Commuters to and from work and patrons of local establishments can do their part, along with those in town simply on vacation; they should report suspicious activity to the police immediately and encourage fellow neighbours to ‘See Something, Say Something. Community-based security strategies might also include regular training and professional development for property managers, staff and residents – to give them the tools with which to enforce security protocols, to recognise suspicious behaviour, report violations of law to law-enforcement authorities and enforce security protocols. The most commonly expressed barriers to reporting suspicious activity cited by participants in focus groups were fear of retaliation and lack of understanding regarding the definition of suspicious activities. To help overcome these barriers, many organisations could encourage community members to anonymously send reports about suspicious activities via text messaging or web-based reporting.
Invest in Lighting
Bad lighting helps criminals to disappear without being seen, so it is very important that you keep your building well-lit at all times. This can keep your residents feeling safe in your property. Prior research has shown that people perceive themselves to be safer when in well-lit environments (Painter 1994, 1996; Chalfin et al. 2020). A drawback of much of this work is that it has relied on comparison communities that were unobserved or on quasi-experimental studies that compare changes in perceived safety between a lighted community and communities where lights were installed and served as controls. It’s hard to say anyway: crime and perceptions of crime and safety fluctuate for any number of reasons. But at least there’s a consistent lumens measurement – and you can rely on SHUFFLE smart poles from Signify (Euronext: LIGHT), which use light waves rather than radio waves, that could otherwise be intercepted and compromised, to provide an internet connection.