YOUR COMMUNITY

We all have the right to make our communities safe. Getting involved in your community is a key factor in keeping them safe.  Work with neighbors, law enforcement agencies, schools, and any other type of organizations or groups that view your concerns. Here are points to immediately consider to improve your community:

• Work with public agencies and other organizations to solve common problems.

• Make sure that all the youth in the neighborhood have positive ways to spend their spare time, through organized recreation, tutoring programs, and volunteer opportunities.
• Set up a Community Watch program, working with local law enforcement agencies. Make sure your streets and homes are well-lit.
• Build a partnership with law enforcement, focused on solving ongoing problems, instead of reacting to crises.
• Take advantage of safety in numbers to show you're determined to drive out crime and drugs.
• Clean up the neighborhood! Involve everyone. Tell criminals that you do care about where you live. Ask for assistance in cleaning up the neighborhood.
• Ask local officials to use new ways to get criminals out of your community. These include enforcing housing, health, and fire codes, and putting drug-free clauses in rental leases.
• Support victims and court witnesses.
• Work with schools to establish drug-free, gun-free zones.
• Develop and share information with local organizations that can provide other services that neighbors might need.

How to start a Neighborhood Watch Program

• Define your neighborhood geographically.  Start small – 20 to 25 homes – so you and your neighbors can get to know everyone.
• Contact your neighbors, determine a good day and time to schedule a neighborhood meeting.
• Discuss crime problems in your area.
• Explain the value of Neighborhood Watch.
• Contact your neighborhood’s law enforcement agency and ask for the Block Watch Coordinator.
• Organize a Citizen Patrol of a problem area in your community with cooperation from your local law enforcement agency.
• Coordinate with local schools and community centers to create and make available after school programs.
• Organize safety workshops on how to protect yourself from becoming a victim.

Working together with law enforcement, and combining the citizen's knowledge of the community with the officer's professional crime prevention skills, enormous progress can be made toward stamping out crime.

The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office offers a Speakers Bureau program that provides speakers on topics that affect our communities like gangs, drugs, graffiti, ID theft, burglary, and auto theft to name a few. To get more information, please download our brochure. Click Here

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