Is Your Neighborhood Ready to Resist Crime Or Is It A Target For Burglars?
It’s Up To You!!

Ask anyone whose home has been burglarized … the shock and helpless anger accompanying the discovery that an intruder has entered one’s home will not easily be forgotten.

The damage may be minimal or major, the losses slight or catastrophic. The incident may or may not have involved injury to a family member—yet one hard fact remains: another statistic has
been added to the ever-growing list of burglarized homes. The burglar won again—and has no doubt vanished, leaving no real clue to lead to his arrest.

Chances are good that a home burglarized today is located in a neighborhood where one vital prevention tool is missing: an active NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH group. This community-based organization of citizens working together with law enforcement has become the key to preventing burglary and crime nationwide.

The National Sheriffs’ Association created the National NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH Program in 1972, with financial assistance from the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, to unite law enforcement agencies, private organizations, and individual citizens in a massive effort to reduce residential crime. A work plan emerged for use by sheriffs, police, and citizens for putting together local neighborhood-based programs. Since its establishment, NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH has developed thousands of such local residential crime prevention programs in which individual citizens work to 1) make their own homes and families less inviting targets for crime, and 2) cooperate with law enforcement through block and neighborhood groups to control crime throughout the community.

The board’s Tom Staves has made initial contact with the Cecil County Sheriff’s Office Neighborhood Watch Coordinator. In the near future a community meeting is going to be scheduled for all the residents of Pelham Manor so that we can listen to what steps we as residents can take to protect our community. The date will be published well in advance so that residents can mark their calendars and take part in this informative event tailored to make us aware of what we can do to help ourselves.