Cops seek to re-energise neighbourhood watch movement

Police Commissioner Antony Anderson has bemoaned the lack of youth participation in community organisations geared at preserving the safety of Jamaica’s neighbourhoods, with fewer than half of the designated groups active.

Anderson argued that uniformed groups such as the Seventh-day Adventist-affiliated Pathfinders Club, working in tandem with the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), could help secure a better future for nationals. But the police chief expressed dismay at the perceived lack of selflessness islandwide.

“Focus more on what you can do for others, and what has to be done for you will be taken care of,” Anderson said during an address at Andrews Memorial Seventh-day Adventist Church during the 35th annual National Neighbourhood Watch Movement service on Saturday.

Acting Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Charmaine Shand, head of the JCF’s Community Safety and Security Branch, said the neighbourhood watch movement was introduced by now-retired Assistant Commissioner Neville Wheatle, who, after travelling overseas, had observed how effective and beneficial community-police collaborations could be.

The initiative, she said, could “create miracles”.

“We the police cannot solve crime by ourselves. It has to be a partnership, and who better else to partner with than the persons who actually reside in those communities?” Shand said in a Gleaner interview on the sidelines of the church service.

Shand, a 34-year veteran of the constabulary, said that the police are working to revitalise and strengthen the neighbourhood watch movement as many groups became dormant during the COVID-19 pandemic.

There are 717 neighbourhood watch groups across the island, but only 300 are active. The majority of its membership are senior citizens though the entry age may be as young as 35.

“At the Community Safety and Security Branch, we want to make sure that we create and maintain safe communities. The neighbourhood watch movement is really our eyes when we are not there,” she said.

The JCF is also aiming to forge a feeder system for members of the national police youth club movement, which accepts members aged seven to 29, so that participants will seamlessly transition into neighbourhood watches when they are eligible.

“We are going to continue to ensure that Jamaica understand, especially the criminal elements, that we are going to continue to make sure that we come together as community members to eliminate all that is happening in our communities that are lawlessness,” Shand told The Gleaner.

Shand said that closer community-police relations were key to boosting safety in neighbourhoods. Drawing on her own record as a one-time divisional commander in St Thomas in 2014, Shand said that police-community ties then led to a decrease in murders by 65 per cent.

“I never forget that because there were persons who had confidence in me as police officer,” she said.

Dr Asha Mwendo, president of the national neighbourhood watch movement, reminisced about the alert systems of the past, which included whistles, the use of porch lights, and even the clanging of Dutch pot covers.

Those strategies, she said, saved her twice in her younger years while in her Manchester hometown where she almost became a victim of rape had it not been for community assistance and police response.

“So I have personal experience of working with a community and ... I know neighbourhood watch works,” Mwendo said.

Mwendo, the first female president of the national neighbourhood watch movement, acknowledges that her work is cut out for her since assuming office last year.

“For me, I don’t want it to be a title or a tagline, it is action. So what we are doing now is reorganising communities around the neighbourhood watch,” she said.

A psychologist by profession, Mwendo also aims to attract more unattached youths to the movement.

“We are also working close with the police again, other community stakeholders, to teach citizens how to resolve every little dispute that they have and how to prevent them,” she said.

“We also have inherited deep-seated family history causing divisions in communities as well, so some of the processes are also teaching some communities how to heal to from the past in order to live in the present and move for the future,” Mwendo added.

Ian Forbes, custos of St Andrew, said that Jamaica was in desperate need of “strong communities” with a spirit of volunteerism.

Master Guide Donneil Linton, in his message, said uniformed groups had a role to play in burnishing the neighbourhood watch movement as a force for good that could effect change and encourage order.

Linton also lamented that too many youngsters were “wreaking havoc” on society because they had lost their identity and purpose.

“Pathfinders, master guides, leaders, “ she said.

Jamaica has recorded more than 1,300 murders this year.

asha.wilks@gleanerjm.com