Samantha Nolan is the neighborhood watch guru of the District of Columbia. After launching the Chevy Chase neighborhood watch program in 2000, she has helped get an additional half-dozen off the ground across the District. Neighborhood watch is just as much about having extra eyes for police as it is about educating members of the public on how to protect themselves.
Q: How do you view the role of neighborhood watch?
A: Education is the biggest deterrent to crime. About 50 percent of crime is preventable through education. Simple things, like not leaving your purse in a shopping cart or not leaving anything of value out in the open in your car, locking your windows and having an alarm system, all help. Getting that type of information out there and details about crimes happening in particular neighborhoods is extremely important to reducing crime.
Q: How do you get a neighborhood watch program off the ground?
A: I give a PowerPoint presentation on about how most crime is crime of opportunity. If you reduce the opportunity, you reduce the crime. I also help set up block captains, who unite the neighborhood with block lists. When there’s a crime in that neighborhood, the captain informs everyone on the list, and residents become the eyes and ears of the police department.
Q: Have you seen those extra eyes and ears pay off?
A: A neighbor in Chevy Chase helped catch a group that was wanted for 18 burglaries in the area. After a meeting with police, we were able to put out the word that the burglaries were happening along the M4 bus line.
They happened in a 30-day period. We told people to keep an extra eye on houses where they knew people were gone. One watch member saw four people entering the back of a house. He called police, and they were caught.
