We don't claim to know everything about crime prevention, mobilizing forces, protecting ourselves and our property, or reporting crime. We do, however, know a lot more about those things than we do about making hyper-links work.
What works for us may not work for you. The problems that plague us may not bother you at all and the problems that you have to contend with may not even exist for us. Crime does exist and it IS a problem.
These pages will reflect a little bit about our community, quite a bit about our organization and a whole lot about "theory". I hope you will find some or all of it interesting.
If you have questions, comments, or ideas that might work for us, believe me when I say they would be greatly appreciated. If the bad guys can share their knowhow with each other, it seems reasonable that the good guys should also share our ideas. Doesn't it?
Oakland is a historical community on the NE side of Topeka, Kansas. Nestled at a bend in the Kansas River, our neighborhhod blankets nearly 5 square miles to include about 2300 homes, 3 parks, an airport, a community center, 5 schools, 11 churches, and many businesses.
I think it is safe to say that very few (if any) of our neighbors find anything worthwhile about discrimination. Age, race, religion, politics, and financial status controversies can turn the most intelligent people into babbling fools in no time at all!
Having listed 5 topics where bias does not thrive, I will name one that causes a whole lot of problems. We don't like it. We don't want it. We aren't going to tolerate it. When crime moved in, we moved out; not out of the neighborhood ... out onto our streets!
Our group was born of frustration and dedicated to prevention as opposed to intervention. Starting with only a handful of volunteers, we have grown to more than 250 members. Some patrol. Some watch. All of us call the police without hesitation.
The Oakland Community Center donates a room for our monthly meetings. We have had some wonderful speakers who have provided us with information, training, motivation, and education. (Most of the various Police units, both Chiefs of Police, the Sheriff, Fire Department, Ambulance service, Judges, the District Attorney and staff, EMT's, Red Cross, the 9-1-1 T-Comm Dispatchers, our State Senator and Congressman, the Chief of Operations/ Weather Bureau, and many more)
We are into our fourth year of operation. Everything we did was a matter of trial and error. If anyone knew our concept was not unique they didn't share that information with the rest of us. We spent a lot of time taking two steps forward and one step backward. (Perhaps this page will help the next group who decides to tackle a project like this.)
Lacking car to car communication, the people on patrol would select a location to meet and exchange information every half hour. We had a lot of area to cover and our time was spent meeting each other. If a car missed a meeting, others went searching. We had no way to call off the seacrh until the next meeting time. This problem continued for weeks, if not months, until CB radios entered the picture. Those with CB's took turns meeting with those who couldn't communicate on the air. (I hope to share some incident report stories - such as our first stolen vehicle recovery - as time and space permit but first we construct. Then, we decorate.)
Everyone was asked to patrol. If they couldn't or didn't drive, they were asked to ride as an observer. We were having success by having cars on the streets. Crime was backing away, but it wasn't gone. Our single method to taking back our neighborhood was patrol, patrol, patrol. The constant pressure was more than some people could or would contend with. For each person we lost, we probably gained two because we were still growing. (Am I missing something?) If we hadn't lost one, we would have had three instead of two.
Vehicle patrols have always been the top choice because they are safer, in communication with each other and a base unit, and able to cover the most area in the least time. Without our vehicle patrols, we would probably still be running for cover when a car backfired because we never knew backfires from shotgun blast or firecrackers from gunshots.
A couple of years ago (1995-96), the Oakland N.I.A. was offered Federal "Stop the Violence" grant money through the City of Topeka. They voted to assign their grant to us in recognition of our efforts and to help promote our organization. We purchased many items including CB radios, a camcorder, first-aid kits, fire extinguishers, magnetic signs, and other items. From that point forward, no patrol car had to do without communication and we encourage all of our members to use a CB as a safety link.
Vehicle patrols are our TOP choice; but they are by no means our only choice. Many of our members enjoy walking and biking. Other members enjoy our parks and often take their dogs for walks. Sometimes these neighbors carry a hand-held CB with them which allows them to communicate with others. We talked about these activities at our monthly meetings and decided to take full advantage of these extra hours of watching and patroling by creating additional sub-groups such as a Stroll Patrol, Bike Patrol, Pooch Patrol, Park Patrol, etc. to suplement our Vehicle Patrol. When the word got around through the neighborhood, we had people standing in line to participate.
The program was working! I've always been told "If it works, don't fix it!". Well ... That's okay if you are willing to just maintain something but we still had crime in the area and we really aren't willing to settle for just "less" crime. So ... We went back to work.
Our walkers and bikers were meeting and visiting with neighbors along their
paths. Often the people they met had tales to tell. A drug house here ...
a gang member there ... a lot of come-and-go traffic right down on the
corner! Often, it was not being reported to the authorities for one reason
or another. Personal, family, and property safety was a very big issue.
As the neighbors learned they could trust us, more information became
available. The more information that became available, the more we realized
we had another group to include. Block Watches! (The 24 hour a day, 7 day
a week groups of neighbors who know just about everything that happens on
their own block.) All we had to do was get them together and
convince them to communicate with each other, their surrounding blocks, and
our information center. If they would not call the police or sheriff, WE
would - if and when needed. We have had success with this plan but we have
a lot of blocks in our area and a very long way to go.
The links below provide some marginal insight we would like to share with
those who care. We will update with any information or ideas we find to be
helpful just as soon as possible. If you find something useful, we hope you
will take time to let us know. If you have ideas for us, PLEASE share them
with us. We are all in this world together so we might as well help each
other when we can.
VEHICLE PATROL
STROLL PATROL
BICYCLE PATROL
PARK PATROL
POOCH PATROL
BLOCK WATCH
© 1997 OOPS!
