Neighborhood Crime: What to do about it

A crime is an illegal act performed by an individual which can be punished by the government or other authorities. The crimes which are particularly based in your neighborhood are called neighborhood crimes. One single crime is enough to change the entire life of the victim.

If you’re the victim, you might end up losing your hard-earned valuables, getting yourself or your loved ones injured, or even losing your own or your loved ones’ lives. That’s why it’s important to have some basic knowledge about neighborhood crime hidden up your sleeve. Knowing and utilizing such information in your actions might help you build a better neighborhood for yourself and your lovely family.

That’s exactly why, in the next several minutes, you’re going to learn some informative facts about neighborhood crime. We will also answer the most frequently asked questions about neighborhood crime.

How do I find out the crime rate in my area?

It’s very important to be aware of the crime rate in your area, especially while choosing a new area to reside in. If you don’t have your hands on the correct tools and services, you might be left scratching your head. That’s because it’s almost impossible to find out the crime rate of an area without taking help from these tools or services.

Wondering what these tools and services are? No worries! Here’s all the information about some tools which you can use to find out how safe your current or destination area really is:

Neighborhood Scout
Remember the crime stats you just read above? What if we tell you can find similar statistics for every neighborhood of your choice? Neighborhood Scout does exactly that. You can compare the overall crime rates, violent crime rates, and property crime rates of different cities and states. You can even find out national averages of crime rates.

A feature that sets Neighborhood Scout apart from other similar services is that you can create custom searches for new neighborhoods. You just enter the qualifications of your neighborhood and it will find comparable neighborhoods for you in the state of your choice.

Most of the information provided by Neighborhood Scout is free. However, if you need detailed reports and analysis, you’ll have to pay a fee.

FamilyWatchdog
Sexual crimes constitute a large bulk of your typical neighborhood crime reports. To find out the actual crime rate and safety of an area, you must know if a certain area is spoiled with many sex offenders. FamilyWatchdog puts such information at your disposal for your safety.

Just input the address of your preferred neighborhood in the search box and you’ll be presented with a map with locations of nearby registered sex offenders. Icons are color-coded for different types of sex crimes, like crimes against children, and rape. Clicking on an icon presents you with a picture of the criminal along with their aliases and previous crimes.

Using FamilyWatchdog is free of cost. However, to find out the detailed background of a sex offender, you’ll have to pay a fee.

CrimeReports
More than 1000 law enforcement agencies contribute to the crime-mapping feature of CrimeReports. CrimeReports shows you all the related police activity in an area when you search by zip code, region, address, or law enforcement agency.

You can also shrink the search to a neighborhood and you’ll see icons representing crime activities in the respective neighborhood. Selecting an icon displays all the details about that specific criminal activity, like location, type, time, and date.

How can we prevent crime in our neighborhood?

As it’s obvious, everyone wants to keep themselves, their families, and their neighborhood safe and sound. It’s important for your residential community to be safe and secure for you if you want to get ahead in your life. An unsafe neighborhood might trick into many problems that you’ll have to deal with. So, here are some tips for you to reduce neighborhood crimes in your area and make it a better place:

Get to know your neighbors
To build a strong and safe neighborhood, the first thing you might want to do is to know about your neighbors. Talk to them, get to know them, and build better relations with them. In case, they are also interested in keeping their neighborhood safe, cooperate with them and plan your safety precautions accordingly.

If you are highly into neighborhood crime elimination, you might want to join a Neighborhood Watch.

Inform the police about suspicious behavior
In the quest of cleaning your neighborhood of crimes, an important step is to recognize suspicious behavior and report it to the police as soon as possible. For example, if you see a stranger trying to enter your neighbor’s house or garage without their knowledge, don’t hesitate to reach out to the police. In the cases where you can’t do anything yourself, getting the police involved is your best bet.

Keep your house secure
Of course, it’s important to get involved in neighborhood safety, but the first thing you might want to secure is your house itself. You don’t want thieves and robbers breaking into your house while you’re out on vacation. Make sure you’re using strong locks on your doors and windows.

Keep your window blinds closed and the curtains drawn so thieves can’t check out the internal structure of your house from outside and pre-plan the robbery. It’s also a great idea to not post your vacation updates on social media until you have returned back home. Potential thieves can easily get their hands on such information from your social media accounts and plan their thefts.

Is Nextdoor secure?

Nextdoor is the biggest social media platform there is for neighborhoods. It’s based in San Francisco, California and was originally launched in 2008. It was launched in the U.S in 2011. You can register yourself on Nextdoor and then you’ll be able to interact with your local neighbors for various neighborhood matters. You can also use it for various neighborhood crime removal tips sharing.

Even though the platform wasn’t aimed at negative usage, it’s still being used for various kinds of scams.

In Westminister, Colorado, a 72 years old woman was looking up for fence-repairing services on Nextdoor and she eventually ended up choosing one. Two contractors appeared on her doorstep and asked for a $11800 cheque in order to pay for supplies. She never saw those men again.

A Nextdoor spokesperson said, “this is an issue that affects all online platforms, and we encourage our members to take this matter seriously and to continue to be vigilant online at all times”.

Nextdoor can be very useful at times, but you must stay cautious of fraud services and contractors on the platform.

Does Nextdoor show my address?

In simple terms, yes. But Nextdoor allows its users to hide their exact house number and only display the street number.

Nextdoor requires you to input your real name and address on the platform, then your address is verified and you’re allowed to use the platform. By default, your address is displayed to your neighbors but you can choose to only display your street number and not the house number itself.

Does Nextdoor cost money?

Simply put, no. Nextdoor is completely free for you to use and your neighborhoods to join. Nextdoor makes money by sponsored advertisements, neighborhood sponsorships, and local deals. It doesn’t directly cost any money to the users.

How can I live in a bad neighborhood?

Not everyone can afford to move to a new safer household when they start experiencing problems in their existing neighborhood. If you’re one such person and are trying to get some tips on how to keep yourself and your valuables safe while living in a crime-infested area, read-on as we have some tips for you:

Get a home security system
One security precaution that you must take no matter how good or bad your neighborhood is, is to install a home security system in your house. Home security systems are especially necessary for neighborhoods with a high crime rate. These systems are cheaper than you might have expected and reports suggest that these systems actually help in reducing neighborhood crime percentage in an area.

Be street-alert
While walking down the street, make sure to pay full attention to your surroundings and be alert of any suspicious person in your sight. Refrain from looking at your phone while walking, especially during the night. It’ll distract you from your surroundings and expose you to potential criminals.

Lock your house’s entry points and valuables
Houses that have comparatively weaker locks on doors and windows are more appealing to thieves and robbers. That’s why it’s important to keep your doors and windows locked with high-quality locks. In case a thief manages to break into your house, make it harder for him to get his hands on your valuables by storing them in protective safes.

How do I research a neighborhood?

There are several factors that you consider about a neighborhood before you move in to build your residence there. Neighborhood crime rate being one of these factors, you might be wondering how do you research about that specific neighborhood. There are a few ways, let’s discuss them:

In-person research
If your destination neighborhood is easily accessible to you, you might want to go there and check out the situation yourself. Talk to the existing residents about the condition of local neighborhood crimes.

Use social media groups or communities
Another way to research a neighborhood is to join the Facebook groups or other social media communities of your destination neighborhood and see what people are talking about. You can also communicate with them there to discuss local neighborhood crimes in that area.

Use online neighborhood crime hunting services
The last and possibly the most effective way is to use earlier-discussed online services like Neighborhood Scout, FamilyWatchdog, and CrimeReports. These services provide you with a detailed analysis of neighborhood crimes of any area you are searching for. CWP

Community Watch Paper blogs:

Community Neighborhood Watch

World Crime Rates