Title: National Night Out: Building Police and Community Partnerships To
Prevent Crime.
Series: Practitioner Perspectives Bulletin
Author: Rebecca Morris
Published: May 2000
Subject: Crime Prevention, Community Policing
29 pages
71,000 bytes

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National Night Out: Building Police and Community Partnerships To Prevent
Crime

National Night Out was established in 1984 with funding from the Bureau of
Justice Assistance (BJA), U.S. Department of Justice. The program is
administered by the National Association of Town Watch, a nationwide
organization dedicated to the development, maintenance, and protection of
community-based, law enforcement-affiliated crime prevention activities.
National Night Out was developed as a crime prevention program that
emphasizes building a partnership between the police and the community.
Community involvement in crime prevention is generated through a multitude of
local events, such as block parties, cookouts, parades, contests, youth
activities, and seminars.

With continued funding from BJA, participation in National Night Out crime
prevention activities has increased from 2.5 million people in 400 communities
in 1984 to more than 32 million people in 9,530 communities in 1999. Project
365, which helps communities target specific problems over the course of the
year, was also developed through BJA funding.

National Night Out's objectives include refining the nationwide crime prevention
campaign, documenting successful crime prevention strategies, expanding
Project 365, disseminating information about successful community-based
strategies, providing technical assistance on crime prevention program
development, and developing the National Night Out Web site. With continued
support from BJA, National Night Out is making communities across the nation
safer places to live.

----------------------------

On a Boston street corner where firebrands and revolutionaries gathered more
than two centuries ago, Chris Hayes and his little band of two stood on an
August night in 1985, ready to shake things up again. 

The occasion was National Night Out (NNO). A young man in Philadelphia
named Matt Peskin recently had launched this new crime prevention program
as a way for people to begin taking back their neighborhoods by gathering in
the streets one summer night each year, turning on their house and porch lights,
and celebrating their power to control events in the community. The idea was
catching on in cities across the country.

Hayes was an early convert. "I knew that if we all just stood on our own
doorsteps, there wouldn't be any crime," he remembered. "I knew that, and I
thought, 'I've got to say that.' "

So Hayes, newly appointed as the sole staff member of the Boston Police
Department's crime watch unit, took his boss and the head of a neighborhood
advocacy group down to Tremont and Park Streets at the edge of the Boston
Public Garden. As hundreds milled around the "T" subway entrance, picnicked
in the green, or just hung out, Hayes took out a proclamation and read it to the
masses: The good people of Boston were taking back their neighborhoods on
this National Night Out.

"Hardly anybody even looked up," he recollected. Fourteen years later, on
August 3, 1999, more than 25,000 people in Boston rallied, held block parties,
and celebrated one of the largest and most successful crime prevention
programs in the country.

Such growth has occurred nationwide. In 1999, the 16th National Night Out,
more than 32 million people in 9,530 communities gathered in parks and streets
and front yards, celebrating yearlong partnerships between police and
communities that have helped reduce crime. In many cities, between 10 and 15
percent of the population, sometimes more, participated in National Night Out
in some way--as organizers or donors, cooks or art contest judges, exhibit
builders or block captains, not to mention the people in charge of supplying ice
cream sprinkles.

In some locations there were serious reminders of what is at stake. In Chicago,
2 days after a young girl was hit by a stray bullet while purchasing candy from a
corner store, more than 3,000 NNO participants marched and rallied in
protest. Speaker after speaker appealed to the crowd: Someone must have
seen what happened; people don't get shot in broad daylight without someone
knowing who did it. By nightfall someone came forward, and the police
arrested two young men.

In most communities, though, the NNO mood was festive. There were award
dinners and parades and huge kickoff events. Mayors issued declarations, and
police commissioners praised community efforts. At the heart of National Night
Out were gatherings of neighbors, opportunities for residents to meet one
another and local beat officers in a friendly environment.

In Lodi, California, two newcomers to Bayberry Street--Johnny and Stacey
Moreno--agreed to host a National Night Out block party so they could meet
their neighbors. It was the first time this block had celebrated. When the party
started, few people knew each other. Two hours later, Johnny Moreno knew
Howard, Mark and Susan, Darrell and Cathy, Paul, Bill, and George. He knew
which houses were theirs, how long they had been in the neighborhood, and
how they liked to spend their time. What's most important, he knew he could
call them for help if he needed someone, say, to check on his house while his
family was out of town. All of them met Det. Brian Scott for the first time--he
was the first police officer with whom many had ever had a conversation.

In Vicksburg, Mississippi, Sgt. Douglas Arp continued his tradition of hosting
one of the biggest and longest National Night Out parties. NNO in this
community lasts for 7 days in August. Festivities have taken place at the top of
a billboard and inside an air-conditioned, steam-cleaned trash dumpster--
wherever Arp can draw the public's attention to the event. One year he literally
holed up in a hole in the ground, complete with bed, chair, and fan. This year,
he sat in a wrecked car, waving to the more than 1,160 passers-by and 
welcoming more than 560 visitors, most of them bearing food. In a town of just
25,000, Arp's antics send a message about crime prevention directly to nearly
10 percent of the population and to many more through media coverage from
nearby Jackson.

Many of these NNO events and gatherings appear to be deceptively simple.
People get together and share food and drink, a few conversations, and a little
information about the neighborhood or the town. To an outsider, many of these
celebrations are indistinguishable from any other barbecue or street party,
except for the National Night Out banners and posters. But it is the year-round
effort of building neighborhood organizations and partnerships with police--the
work of organizing National Night Out events--that gives this night its special
meaning.


"This is not 'Kiss a Cop Day' or something like that," said Peskin, founder of
National Night Out and executive director of the National Association of Town
Watch (NATW), which runs the program. "It's a program that really makes a
difference. It's a lot of fun to put together, it reaches deep into neighborhood-
and community-building, and it works."

When Peskin started National Night Out, he hoped simply to develop a higher
profile for the community crime watch activities that he knew were helping to
deter crime. The program has become a good example of the social
capital-building that social scientists have identified as important for reducing
crime.

The authors of a 1995 study of Chicago neighborhoods, Neighborhood
Collective Efficacy: Does It Help Reduce Violence?, published in the journal
Science and by the National Institute of Justice, found that the largest single
predictor of crime levels was "collective efficacy," which they defined as mutual
trust among neighbors combined with willingness to intervene on behalf of the
common good. Neighborhoods with high collective efficacy scores had crime
rates 40 percent below those in lower scoring neighborhoods.[1]

Dr. Wesley Skogan, professor of political science at Northwestern University in
Chicago, who has examined these issues in his research, noted that "where
people are involved in neighborhood organizations, have extensive acquaintance
networks, and are willing to get involved, there's a reduction in violent
crime."[2]

National Night Out was founded in 1984 with $15,000 from the National
Crime Prevention Council's grant from the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA);
since then funding for the event has increased steadily.

Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) has been the primary advocate of NNO funding
for many years. "National Night Out represents an imaginative and effective
approach to crime prevention," said spokesperson Charles Robbins. "[Senator
Specter] has supported it and expects to support it in the future."

In a community impact assessment of the program conducted in 1998, nearly
90 percent of law enforcement officers who responded to the survey said
NNO in 1997 had enhanced their agencies' policing programs. Three-quarters
of residents said they felt either more or much more comfortable contacting law
enforcement officers after National Night Out, and 64 percent said they felt
safer in their communities. Perhaps most important for generating partnerships
between residents and police, residents reported meeting, on average, five new
law enforcement officers during the event. More than half of the respondents
said they had met 25 or more fellow residents. 

National Night Out evolved in part because a writer was running out of subjects
to write about. In 1981, Peskin was responsible for his neighborhood crime
watch group's newsletter. When he contacted other groups for story ideas, he
noticed that every group was having a problem sustaining volunteer interest. He
suggested they start an association to coordinate their activities and share
information.

The National Association of Town Watch was born, and the idea spread to
other cities. Soon, Peskin was seeking ways to get even more people involved
in crime watch groups. "There was no need to be quite so low profile about it,"
he said.

Peskin remembers two images that helped shape the National Night Out idea in
his mind. One was the scene from the movie "Network" in which the anchor
urges viewers to go to their windows, lean out, and shout, "I'm mad as hell and
I'm not going to take it anymore." The other was a soft drink ad about a
program called Hands Across America. "I loved that idea but I didn't like the
idea that you had to pay to stand in line," Peskin recalled. "Also, it wasn't real
clear what they were doing."

But Peskin knew what NATW needed. "I felt we needed to do something
different and powerful and productive, something high profile, with a high
impact and broad scale." Inspired by the two film images, Peskin developed the
idea for National Night Out and presented it to his board.

The original concept was very simple: Everyone in a neighborhood would sit on
their front porch for an hour with the lights on "to send a clear signal that there
[are] more of us than there are of them," Peskin recalled. He started promoting
it in April 1984. The following August, 400 communities with 2.5 million people
in 23 states participated in the first National Night Out.

Among the first cities participating were Detroit, Houston, Minneapolis, New
York, and Philadelphia. Despite the success, "it wasn't like it was a real easy
sell," Peskin recalled. Police chiefs were wary of getting involved with the new
organization because "if it fell on its face, they would look like idiots." The large
turnout and positive media coverage won them over, and the next year more
than 2,100 communities celebrated the event.

Over the years, the national office in Philadelphia and various communities have
added special elements to the celebration. Block parties were an innovation in
1986. The following year, with the introduction of the awards program, "the
communities really got into it," competing for top honors in their city-size
category, Peskin said. In 1994, Project 365 was launched to help communities
identify specific projects they could address year-round. The projects, which
have included cleaning local parks, removing graffiti, and establishing new
services, begin on Night Out and conclude 365 days later.

SC Johnson is NNO's primary corporate sponsor, contributing funds as well as
promotional materials such as the banners, posters, door-hangers, and product
coupons that block captains use to organize events. The company also
organizes local retailers of Johnson products to offer sponsorships, listing them
on the promotional materials. "We look for programs that bring meaning from
consumer and trade perspectives and programs that give back to the
community," said Marty Killinger, SC Johnson's manager for promotional
resources.

But there are literally thousands of other local and regional businesses that
contribute to the events: grocery stores donate food, utilities lower electricity
rates on National Night Out, and large employers subsidize employees' block
parties or offer their parking lots for gatherings.

Today, NATW is still lean, with a 5-person office and $700,000 budget. Each
February, the office sends out more than 10,000 organizational packets to
groups around the country, telling them how to organize or expand NNO
events; how to order banners, posters, and door-hangers listing the names of
local sponsors; how to generate media interest in advance of and during
National Night Out; and whom to contact. The kits provide camera-ready
artwork, sample press releases, a sample National Night Out proclamation, and
an array of other material to guide local organizers through the planning
process. Participants receive additional mailings in May and July, as well as four
newsletters throughout the year.

Each year the national office organizes a huge kickoff event in Philadelphia the
night before National Night Out. After the event, staff review contest
submissions from thousands of cities and towns, each vying to be ranked as the
best among cities of their size. For the contest, communities submit notebooks
and videos with accounts of successful crime watch groups and National Night
Out events.

In 1997, BJA funded development of a Web site (www.natw.org), at which
groups can obtain information about or register for NNO. Eventually users will
be able to order equipment and perhaps participate in National Night Out
discussion groups through the Web site.


The main action, of course, takes place in cities and towns around the country.
The following five cities have been ranked among the best in their size category
by NATW for many years: New Orleans, Louisiana; Minneapolis, Minnesota;
The Woodlands (Houston), Texas; Boston, Massachusetts; and Lodi,
California. Although there are similarities among communities nationwide that
celebrate National Night Out, these cities exemplify the best thinking about how
to make the program successful.

New Orleans, Louisiana

The evening of August 3, 1999, was as hot and humid as any summer night can
be in New Orleans, an evening when those riding the famed streetcars into the
city's Garden District fanned themselves and wished for something cool to
drink. It was weather that typically keeps people inside their air-conditioned
homes rather than out on the streets.

But this night 18,000 people were celebrating at more than 375 neighborhood
events. It was a night when city officials, law enforcement officers, leaders from
communities of faith, business leaders, and neighborhood residents paused to
reflect on the roles each had played in realizing a 46-percent decrease in violent
crime since 1995.

Police Sgt. Greg Elder and his staff coordinate each year's National Night Out,
but the event is the culmination of yearlong efforts to involve communities in
fighting crime. Throughout the year, Elder's department works closely with
neighborhood associations and Neighborhood Watch programs to share local
crime statistics, hear residents' perspectives, and develop effective interventions
in response to citizens' concerns.

National Night Out focuses attention on the success of these efforts and
encourages more citizens to get involved in crime prevention activities. The
event has become so institutionalized, Elder said, that "people feel like they're
missing out on something if they're not a part of it. There's almost a competition
between neighborhoods to see who can be most effective."

The night is designed to accomplish six goals:

o Provide an opportunity for neighbors to meet one another.

o Increase interaction and communication among citizens, police, and city
leaders.

o Build relationships of trust and respect among residents, police, and city
leaders.

o Encourage citizens to become involved in fighting crime.

o Allow people to recognize and celebrate the successes they have achieved
through cooperative efforts.

o Give residents and police a chance to recommit to working together.

New Orleans' events on National Night Out are as diverse as the city's
neighborhoods. Some focus on involving children and youth in organizing and
participating in the event. Diane Sakowski, organizer for the Willowbrook
Apartments, says she got involved because she was concerned about children
and their well-being. "With innocent kids getting killed on the streets every day
from drugs, gangs, and other violent acts, I had no choice but to get involved,"
she said. "The kids are our future and if we don't invest in them now, we'll pay
later on."

Planning for the Willowbrook celebration begins several months before NNO
and explicitly involves young people. This year's events included a potluck
dinner, a youth talent show, and group singing and dancing. "Experience shows
that when youth are involved, they not only show up and get to know each
other, they bring their parents with them," Sakowski said. "This gives the adults
the opportunity to meet each other and see youth involved in positive activities.
It also provides the opportunity to talk with both adults and youth about
crime-related issues and to give them information on how to protect themselves
and their property."

Other events are organized around music, such as the one held this year in the
Lakefront Area on beautiful Lake Pontchartrain, where the Petit Bois, a band
of young people aged 8 to 13, provided the entertainment. The band's message
to other youth was pick up an instrument, not a gun--make music rather than
get into trouble. More than 100 adults were on hand to celebrate as well.

District A City Council Member Suzanne Terrell, who attended this event,
noted that "New Orleans has always been a neighborhood-focused city where
people care about each other. National Night Out, however, provides an
organized opportunity to publicly say to criminals that citizens living in this
neighborhood are not going to put up with criminal activity. If you do something
wrong there will be a reaction from the neighborhood residents as well as the
police department. This is very effective in preventing crimes."

And then there is the famed French Quarter, where parties happen 365 days a
year. This year's National Night Out celebration, organized by B.B. St. Roman,
was one of the few events in the Quarter at which locals outnumbered tourists.
With her beautiful cockatoo, Iko, sitting on her shoulder, St. Roman recalled
that when she first moved to the French Quarter she lived behind locked doors
because she was afraid to go out into the streets.

"When I saw my 90-year-old neighbor going out onto the street shouting at
some kids who were vandalizing property, I knew I had to get involved," St.
Roman said. "I realized that if she could be involved, so could I. If I wanted to
have a nice block to live on, I had to do something. That meant coming out
from behind locked doors, getting to know my neighbors, finding out from
police what kind of crime was occurring in my neighborhood, and then taking a
role in stopping that crime." According to St. Roman, their neighborhood efforts
have been successful. "The neighborhood is a different place now than it was
just 3 years ago," she said. "Drug trafficking is down substantially as are
quality-of-life crimes. We now have reason to celebrate!"

New Orleans may know how to party, but everyone involved in National Night
Out--neighborhood residents, city officials, business leaders, and police--
agreed on a set of best practices required to give New Orleans, or any city,
something to celebrate.

Leadership from the top. All sectors, including the police, business community,
and city government, must support the effort, and they must understand and
make a commitment to the fundamentals of community policing and citizen
involvement in crime reduction. In New Orleans, new Police Superintendent
Richard Pennington restructured the department to get more officers working in
the neighborhoods and redesigned the officer training program to emphasize
building effective community partnerships. The city's business leadership
endowed a Police Foundation with enough resources to provide supplemental
funds for community policing, and elected officials upgraded police salaries and
increased the number of police officers. All of these groups actively participate
in NNO activities.

Leadership at the grassroots level. In each neighborhood at least one local
resident must take responsibility for community organizing. In most cases this
involves year-round coordination of neighborhood meetings, monitoring of
crime statistics, and engagement of city and police department officials when
appropriate.

Each neighborhood has various assets upon which to build, including 
residents, faith communities, and community-based service organizations. Roles
for these partners need to be identified so they can become part of the solution.
In New Orleans these roles include providing space for meetings, contributing
funds for a National Night Out event, providing photocopying services for
community meeting notices, distributing the notices, and providing recognition of
community citizens working on crime reduction activities.

Relationships of trust and respect between citizens and police. A conscious
effort must be made to provide opportunities for citizens and police to get to
know one another. Communication must be two-way--that is, citizens need to
hear what concerns police have and police need to hear what citizens have to
say. Recognition that each has something to contribute to making
neighborhoods safe is critical to forming the partnerships necessary to be
effective in reducing crime.

In New Orleans, police officers are expected to attend any Neighborhood
Watch meeting at which they are needed and the police department provides
monthly briefings for neighborhood leaders noting crimes committed in their
neighborhood during the month. Further, if special circumstances arise and
neighborhood leaders need special meetings, the police make themselves
available.

A point person in the police department to coordinate NNO efforts citywide.
Because National Night Out is part of an overall community policing strategy,
Sgt. Elder has not only responsibility for the program but the authority and
resources to make it happen. 

Effective pre- and postevent publicity. Among the strategies used in New
Orleans to secure publicity are a partnership with a local television station to
provide publicity before, during, and after the events; contributions from Cox
Communications to develop public service announcements; support from local
television and radio stations to schedule appearances by police, citizens, and
city leaders on local broadcasts; phone interviews as requested by the media;
an in-kind contribution advertising the event on the Superdome pylon;
advertising space on billboards and in bus shelters contributed by Outdoor
Systems; and advertising space on taxicab displays.

Public recognition for jobs well done. Any individual, business, or organization
that participates in the coordination or sponsorship of an event should be
publicly recognized for contributing. The recognition takes many forms, ranging
from thank-you letters from public officials to public recognition ceremonies at
which awards are presented.

Linkage of National Night Out to year-round efforts. Neighborhood Watch,
neighborhood associations, civic groups, neighborhood town hall meetings, and
other gatherings of citizens can provide the opportunity to talk about crime
prevention on an ongoing basis.

Officials and residents argued that these critical elements of National Night Out,
together with an effective community policing strategy, have been central to
reducing crime. "We don't have to have a policeman on every corner," said
Police Capt. Ernie Demma, commander of the Eighth District in the French
Quarter. "But we do have to have citizens working with the police. A
10-percent increase in citizen participation is equivalent to a 50-percent
increase in police manpower."

Minneapolis, Minnesota

"Zhoo...Way...Noh...Dig" read the brightly colored poster, one of many
adorning the walls of the Minnesota Indian Women's Resource Center. The
phrase, written in Ojibwe in a child's handwriting, means "Taking care of each
other," a crime prevention message for the Center's celebration of National
Night Out. In the cafeteria, dozens of women from the Dakota, Lakota, and
Ho-chunk Nations sat talking while young children played, filling the space with
laughter and joy. Sue Kincade, the Center's human resources coordinator,
organized the event in cooperation with other city leaders and spoke of teaching
Native-American children "understanding, not violence." 

A few blocks away in Powderhorn Park, State Patrol Air Wing Trooper Bob
Ringold gently set his helicopter down on the park's playing field. Dozens of
delighted children and their curious parents joined Barb King, NNO organizer
for the 3100 block of 14th Avenue South, in this kickoff of what she called the
"Avenue of the Stars" block party. More than 400 former and current
neighbors, listening to the rock band Rick and the Resisters, would enjoy the
summer evening's crime prevention event. Back in the park, families eagerly
waited to pose for a picture alongside city and park police, while Trooper Bob
discussed the $1.7 million aircraft's role in crime prevention.

At the Madison Apartments on the 500 block of East 15th Street, located in
Minneapolis' Central neighborhood, Alia Mohamed, wearing traditional
Somalian dress, sat in a circle with other Somalian women, quietly encouraging
their participation in community organizing. Moments before the yard of the
apartment complex had been filled with the smells of East African foods,
enjoyed by the neighbors and local community crime prevention police officers.
As the event came to a close, children ran freely on the lush lawns, Somalian
men huddled together in the setting sun, and teenage boys dressed in Tommy
Hilfiger clothes hung out in groups watching the teenage girls. For the Somalis
this was the first National Night Out event organized for their large and growing
community. This evening's theme, expressed by Abdi Gure, was Take Charge
of Your Neighborhood, a new concept to these refugees from a country torn
asunder by civil strife.

As National Night Out events unfolded across the city, Minneapolis, which is
ranked first among large cities by NATW for organizing crime prevention block
clubs, lived up to its reputation. Organizers for the city, including Kincade,
King, Gure, and Mohamed, along with many other activists, told success stories
of overcoming the tragedy of a neighborhood murder and victories in combating
burglary, drug dealing, prostitution, petty theft, traffic problems, nuisance
houses, fear, and hopelessness-challenging neighborhood problems that
motivated them to step forward and take back their streets, parks, and peace
of mind.

It's hard to imagine an undercurrent of crime in a city with such natural beauty,
a booming economy, and a history of progressive civic-mindedness. Think of
Mary Tyler Moore's portrayal of Mary Richards tossing her hat in the air in
downtown Minneapolis, and you sense the promise of this City of Lakes.

In the newly renovated interior court of the Minneapolis City Hall, Mayor
Sharon Sayles Belton, the first African-American woman to be elected mayor
in a major American city, thanked city employees for their part in the success of
National Night Out. This year, she said, more than 850 block parties
representing 1,714 blocks registered. (Later, police announced that more than
42,105 citizens, or 11.5 percent of the city's population, had participated,
representing 30 percent of its streets.)

About to embark on a whirlwind tour of 10 block parties, the mayor laughed
that she would eat her way "across the city," joining residents who were filling
streets, parks, and school yards for an evening of food, fun, and, most
important, conversation.

This year's theme--Back to Basics--emphasized strengthening existing block
clubs and organizing new ones. Theresa Ruhland, a crime prevention manager
for CCP/SAFE, the Minneapolis Police Department's community crime
prevention unit, noted that "block clubs in Minneapolis, and in Minnesota in
general, grew out of a long history of civic-mindedness and neighborhood
organizing." Lucy Gerold, director of the police department's community
services bureau, explained that "block associations and the organizing of block
leaders date back to the early seventies when a Department of Justice's Law
Enforcement Assistance Administration [LEAA] grant provided the seed
money for three pilot projects to develop local block clubs" with a focus on
reducing neighborhood burglaries. Today, among many other crime prevention
activities, CCP/SAFE coordinates Minneapolis' National Night Out.

CCP/SAFE's Unit 24 organizes teams (each consisting of a uniformed officer
and a civilian crime prevention specialist) assigned to the city's 5 precincts. A
central crime prevention office houses three crime prevention managers and
support staff who coordinate the CCP/SAFE programs. Working in
collaboration with other city departments and social service agencies,
CCP/SAFE teams address a wide variety of "livability problems," meeting
routinely with block clubs, neighborhood associations, and other community
groups to prioritize problems and to involve residents in solutions.

To create and strengthen block clubs, the backbone of community crime
prevention efforts, CCP/SAFE works year-round to engage citizens in 
community organizing. Dozens of volunteers, block leaders, corporate 
sponsors, and CCP/SAFE personnel meet monthly to plan and organize
NNO-sending out information, news releases, announcements, block party
suggestions, and street-closing permits. The philosophy of Minneapolis'
National Night Out event is captured in five key messages, reinforced in
National Night Out and CCP/SAFE literature and presentations:

o Cohesive, healthy neighborhoods are key to preventing crime and violence.

o Active block clubs build community, increase hope, and create harmony.

o Positive activities displace negative activities; as people spend more time
outside, they take back their streets and neighborhoods.

o National Night Out is an opportunity for all parts of the community, including
businesses, corporate sponsors, religious institutions, city agencies, and news
media, to come together to promote the shared goal of a safe, healthy 
community.

o National Night Out reinforces the partnership of citizens and police to
combat crime.

From April through July, CCP/SAFE teams conducted outreach to more than
200 blocks, and 66 new block club meetings were organized. "If a
neighborhood does not have a block club, CCP/SAFE team members will go
door to door to encourage someone to step forward and assist with organizing
the neighborhood," Ruhland said. Gerold captured the responsibility block
leaders assume in neighborhood problem solving by noting "block organizers
can't be anonymous-your life is on the block, you are connected, you are just a
door or two away from a problem or a solution."

When a block club has been organized, CCP/SAFE team members offer
leadership training and help organizers set up meetings in their homes, local
schools, churches, or precinct station houses. Throughout the year CCP/SAFE
teams offer 2 -hour block club leadership trainings. In 1998, more than 200
people attended, of whom 61 organized new block clubs and National Night
Out street parties. The highly successful block club leadership trainings consist
of six elements:

o An overview of the CCP/SAFE and Minneapolis Police Department
organizational structures and functions.

o An introduction to crime prevention strategies such as making a home safer
through physical security (hardware) improvements.

o A review of crime prevention programs sponsored by the police department,
such as the McGruff House (a residence on the block designated as a safe
house for children under 12) and Watch-force (a group of citizens who 
participate in surveillance and reporting of community problems).

o A discussion of issues such as building community in diverse settings, youth
involvement, and networking.

o Lessons on the basics of organizing a block/apartment club/network,
including the roles and responsibilities of block leaders.

o Information on how to solve 16 "common problems" such as traffic problems,
youth causing neighborhood disturbances, prostitution, loitering, drug houses,
abandoned dwellings, and adult and child welfare issues.

A beat-up van sits in a parking lot behind an abandoned building down the
street from Linda Kolkind's home on the 3700 block of 14th Avenue South.
On the sides of the van, in neatly spray-painted letters, are the statements "Real
Men Don't Buy Women" and "Pimps Are Wimps." The parking lot, once a
meeting place for johns and prostitutes, serviced a booming sex industry along
the busy commercial strip adjacent to Kolkind's tree-lined street. Kolkind knew
all too well Gerold's observation that "block organizers can't be anonymous"
when she approached pimps, prostitutes, and johns to stop the noise and chaos
the open-air sex market created.

Joining with another neighbor ("You can't do this kind of work alone"), making
demands of the local precinct and councilmember ("We must have called a
hundred times"), working with the vice squad ("They observed from my living
room window"), and collaborating with the CCP/SAFE team, Kolkind went
door to door, organizing her neighbors in an effort to develop a strategy of
peaceful, legal, in-your-face confrontation that pushed the sex trade out of her
neighborhood and off her block.

On National Night Out, Kolkind celebrated by sitting in a lawn chair in the
center of her street talking with friends. A few houses away, her neatly kept
yard, dotted with perennials and enclosed by a picket fence, belied the fact that
this now peaceful street was once the scene of dozens of cruising cars with
drivers searching for a quick exchange of sex for money. Shortly after moving
to the block and into her first home, the self-described ex-hippie, seeing the
drug and sex trades, thought she had made a huge mistake and considered
moving to a safer part of town. Instead Kolkind decided to take a stand and
"stop the insanity" being created by the noise and crime in her neighborhood.
Today, ever vigilant, Kolkind's gutsy organizing skills have reaped a strong
block club and several more on adjoining streets.

The Woodlands (Houston), Texas

Driving down the Woodlands Parkway on National Night Out, you never
would have known that more than half the residents of The Woodlands were
out partying with their neighbors. That's because virtually all 20,000 homes here
are concealed behind walls of pine trees, deep inside a maze of streets and
cul-de-sacs.

Like so much else in this planned community 30 miles north of Houston, the
winding streets with names like Rush Haven and Peaceful Canyon Drive are
deliberate attempts to make residents feel secure. More than three-fourths of
the streets end in cul-de-sacs, making it hard for burglars to find their way
around and easy for residents to get to know their neighbors. This
neighborhood is not only a hidden haven where every home comes wired for
security but also a community where neighbors watch out for neighbors even
though the population has doubled in the last decade.

"We know every single person in this neighborhood," said Vickie Busic as she
pushed her infant son down her street in a stroller and chatted with neighbors
on National Night Out. "Every single one. There are only two ways in here and
two ways out, and if somebody's not supposed to be here, we know it."

Busic, a stay-at-home mom, said her husband, a sales manager for a wine
company, has twice turned down job offers in the 3 years they've lived here so
they could stay in The Woodlands. "This is our extended family," she said.
"Someday I'll be able to let my child play outside and know I'm not the only
one keeping an eye on him. That's why we live here."

That desire to be part of a community is typical of The Woodlands' 56,000
residents and one of the main reasons 32,000 of them participated in NNO this
year, said Marian Leck, manager of Woodlands Watch, the neighborhood
crime watch group that coordinates National Night Out for the area.

"People move here because they want to be part of a community, and that
makes my job that much easier," said Leck, a former sheriff's deputy. "They
know that if you create a sense of community, that will lead to a safe
community."

Just how safe? Lt. Ollie Coward, commander of the Montgomery County
Sheriff's Department district that includes The Woodlands, said that although
theft is a problem in this fast-growing area, particularly at construction sites,
there are relatively few home burglaries and "an astounding lack of violent
crime." In 1997, there were just 0.78 violent crimes for every 1,000 residents,
compared with 11.74 in Houston.

But Woodlands residents pay for their security. Woodlands Watch is one of the
nation's few Neighborhood Watch groups with a paid staff, and its
$237,000-a-year budget comes from the annual dues homeowners and
business owners pay their community associations. Leck, two other full-time
organizers, and three part-time assistants work to promote crime prevention
and public safety year-round--from curb-numbering to registering bicycles to
organizing a telephone network through which the sheriff can issue crime watch
alerts--culminating in National Night Out. In The Woodlands, the staff's salaries
and these programs cost the owner of a $164,000 house, the median sale price
there, less than $11 a year.

Although the staff does not answer to a volunteer advisory board or city
government in this unincorporated community--but to the boards of the
property owners' associations themselves--at the core of Woodlands Watch
are 1,100 volunteers who coordinate Watch events in their neighborhoods.
From the ranks of those volunteers came almost all of this year's 300 NNO
coordinators, who signed up to help out after receiving party registration forms
inside the Woodlands Watchword newsletter sent to all Woodlands Watch
volunteers in June. National Night Out could not have achieved the popularity it
has in The Woodlands without these volunteers, who hang signs, remind their
neighbors about National Night Out when they meet for softball, fill balloons
with free helium at the grocery store, and decide which side of their street's
residents should bring the ice cream and which should bring the sprinkles. But
much of the evening's success is attributed to the full-time staff who handle
paperwork, publicity, finances, and, most of all, planning.

"It's easy to be a volunteer here because it's so organized," said Stephanie
Teed, a music teacher who has helped coordinate her neighborhood's party for
the past 7 years. "You just call them up and say, 'I want to have a party,' and
they send you a packet with everything you need to know."

Woodlands Watch's planning begins early, before city pools and parks have
been reserved. In January or February, the staff schedules a series of
pre-events that generate publicity for National Night Out, educate the public on
crime prevention, and give residents additional opportunities to interact with
sheriff's and constable's deputies, FBI agents, 911 dispatchers, firefighters, and
emergency medical workers. On the agenda for 1999 were Meet the Police
Day at a new sheriff's station in May; Family Fun Night at the YMCA pool in
June; and National Night Out with Sirens and Suspenders for fifth, sixth, and
seventh graders at the Woodlands Recreation Center in July. From a float at
the Montgomery County Fourth of July Parade, Watch workers also passed
out 2,500 fans--"not nearly enough," Leck said--inviting residents to National
Night Out.

These pre-events cost Woodlands Watch approximately $200, mostly for hot
dogs and chips. The group also paid a local company $2,200 to produce a
video about National Night Out in The Woodlands as part of its entry in the
nationwide NNO competition. An additional $4,500 went toward purchasing
the fans and other promotional goodies from NATW: 1,000 balloons, 500
T-shirts, 500 frisbees, 432 pencils, and 36 caps to give away to volunteers,
public safety personnel, and contest winners. Through funding from SC
Johnson, the national association also provided 4,000 invitations to hang on
residents' doors, 400 posters, and 10 banners--plus suggestions for safety
games, sample press releases, and tips for organizing the event.

Since its first National Night Out 9 years ago with just 60 volunteers,
Woodlands Watch has not had any problems organizing the event. By the time
the big night rolled around this year, Woodlands Watch staffers had nothing left
to do except drop in at as many of the area's 128 parties as possible before
sunset.

Each party also received visits from some of the 57 public safety personnel who
participated in National Night Out. School police officers arrived on bikes or
with their K-9 partners. Mall security guards on horseback visited senior
centers. Firefighters brought their trucks; emergency medical workers, their
ambulances; and deputy constables, their patrol cars. Sheriff's deputies passed
out collector cards, produced by the Optimists Club and sponsored by local
businesses, featuring local deputies instead of baseball players.

To make sure there were enough public safety personnel to attend this year's
parties--1,100 houses had been built since last year's NNO--Woodlands
Watch encouraged coordinators to consolidate block parties at neighborhood
parks. Where there would have been seven small parties a few years ago, there
may have been only one big party this year.

That's the kind of organization that law enforcement agencies appreciate.
Constable Tim Holifield said his only contribution to National Night Out in The
Woodlands was scheduling enough deputy constables to work that night. By
giving them an extra day off before the event, he doesn't have to pay overtime.
Likewise, the Sheriff's Department avoids paying overtime by careful
scheduling, said Coward. It's a time commitment law enforcement agencies are
willing to make in the hope that friendly encounters with a deputy will make
children feel that they can turn to the police when they need help and make
adults feel like they're part of a crime-fighting partnership with police.

"This is a chance to let people meet us when they're not getting a traffic ticket,"
Coward said. "This is a chance to educate citizens on how they can be our eyes
and ears."

Boston, Massachusetts

Nearly two dozen police cars, lights pulsating, sirens screaming, poured into the
streets of the Dorchester section of Boston in late afternoon on August 3, 1999.
People froze on the street, eyes wide with curiosity.

This entrance was impressive, but the police weren't there to perform a drug
bust or break up a loud party. They had come instead to make some noise of
their own. It was the last day of National Night Out in Boston, a 5-day
celebration of the partnership between police and neighborhood crime watch
groups. With the city enjoying its lowest crime rate in more than three decades,
there was a lot to celebrate.

Dorchester Avenue was blocked off for the celebration. There were clowns,
face-painting booths, Vietnamese dragon dancers, African dancing
demonstrations, and free ice cream for the kids. Tables were loaded with
information about HIV and AIDS prevention, senior services, and a local
community health center.

In every corner of the city, parties were jumping. Some were official
celebrations with hundreds of participants, visited by a cavalcade that at times
included 29 cars and nearly 100 police and top city officials. Others were
smaller affairs. Most were funded through donations or discounts offered by
area businesses and were organized by community police officers and
neighborhood crime watch groups. The money raised for each party was
relatively modest (up to $1,300), but there were substantial in-kind donations
and party organizers made their purchases carefully to stretch their funds.

In East Boston seniors and youth enjoyed bouquets of blue balloons and a
seven-piece brass band, while police officer Daniel Simons grilled some of the
1,200 hamburgers and hot dogs that were donated by a local supermarket
chain. Simons said that this was a day for residents to see the police as regular
people. "Sometimes they feel when they see us in uniform that we're a little
unapproachable. But when they see us like this," he gestured with a spatula,
"they become a little more friendly."

In Jamaica Plain, Police Community Service Supervisor Larry van Zandt
donned a big smile and a tall chef's hat. "This is our way of showing the
community we truly serve them," he quipped as he stoked two hot grills.

From 10 a.m. until 10 p.m. the city's top brass, including the mayor and the
police commissioner, attended 10 celebrations in every police district in the city,
applauding residents for participating in crime watch groups. The day's
celebration began on the Massachusetts Avenue Bridge, which spans the
Charles River between Boston and Cambridge, where police and citizens from
21 towns and cities held hands while helicopters buzzed overhead and police
and fire department boats sprayed fountains of water below. It was a symbolic
act of the partnership between police and residents.

"They're the eyes and ears of the Boston Police Department," Superintendent
and Chief Robert Faherty said of the citizen crime watchers in the city. "They
know things that are going on in their neighborhoods that we'd never know
because they're there all the time. And it's their information that makes the
streets safe."

Elsa Ogunjobi's neighborhood is a perfect example. Ogunjobi is a single mother
and nurse who must often return home late at night and until recently had been
living right behind a crack house. "It was dangerous and I was afraid something
might go wrong and there might be a shoot-out," she remembered.

Just 2 weeks before National Night Out, police cleaned out the house, and the
arrests were in large part the result of work by the crime watch group Ogunjobi
helped start 7 years ago. "We just got together as a family," she recalled of her
neighbors. They watched the house and talked on the phone, noted faces and
license plates, and worked with community police officer Paul Johnston, who
has been in their Dorchester neighborhood for 8 years. "He's a dear friend to
me because he works so hard on my street to keep us safe," Ogunjobi said.
"And he promised that and he stuck to his promise."

Ogunjobi could barely contain her enthusiasm as she listened to city and police
officials address the crowd gathered in Dorchester on National Night Out. Like
a one-woman crime watch cheerleader, she shouted out her approval. "Yeah!"
she whooped, waving her hand in the air, urging the speakers on.

Boston's crime watch program has built relationships not only between police
and residents but also among residents. Those who have been part of a crime
watch group say they help weave a strong support web from neighbor to
neighbor, overcoming the many barriers that sometimes keep people apart.
Ogunjobi's neighborhood is home to Asian, Caucasian, Latin American,
Caribbean, and African-American residents. She describes her street residents
as close-knit. "Because we have been through a lot of severe crimes, we have
come to be not only neighbors, but family."

As mentioned earlier, 14 years ago, Hayes started the first crime watch group
in Boston on his block in the South End. The summer before he joined the
police department, his street was tormented by a series of muggings. Hayes,
who was 53, began standing alone on his block at night. Soon his neighbors
joined him and the muggings stopped. Since that humble beginning, 1,022 crime
watch groups have emerged in the city. For Hayes, these groups are the key to
building strong communities.

"The common ingredient we found across the city is that neighbors don't know
neighbors anymore," said Hayes. "We have found that there's a hunger to do
that on the streets. That people seem to jump at it." Hayes described the simple
act of neighbors introducing themselves to one another as a kind of magic.
Perceived barriers that sometimes keep people apart, such as language, race, 
religion, and lifestyle, "seem to evaporate very, very quickly." As people get to
know one another, they start to show concern.

As the official cavalcade wound its way across the city, Hayes addressed the
crowds at every stop, handing out community service awards to crime watchers
in every neighborhood. "It is the police department's way of saying thank you to
neighborhoods and to those who have gone the extra mile," explained Tracy
Amalfitano, project director of National Night Out in Boston and assistant
director of the crime watch unit.


On Dorchester Avenue, Hayes gave Theresa O'Neil an award for starting a
crime watch group after she noticed drug dealing and car vandalism in her
neighborhood near Carney Hospital. She reached out to her neighbors, to
police, to other crime watch groups, and to the hospital administration--all of
whom began to work together to solve the problem. "It was a decay that was
starting outside her front steps, that went across the street, down through the
park into other neighborhoods," Hayes said as he cited O'Neil's work. "Think
small. If we can stop a little bit of an infection, it's not going to spread to a 
serious illness in the neighborhood."

Mayor Thomas M. Menino called crime watches "one of the most effective
tools we have in fighting crime," and said that National Night Out was an
important crime awareness tool--especially today when crime rates are
dropping.

For the ninth consecutive year the crime rate has dropped in Boston, with the
largest decrease in homicides, which are at their lowest level since 1961. For
the past 5 years Boston has outpaced cities nationwide in serious crime
reduction, and is now ranked as the 12th safest large city in the country.

"[National Night Out] puts awareness of crime in front of people again,"
Menino said. "Because we are going through good times, it's not time to get
complacent. It's time to redouble our efforts and make sure we don't go back
to where we were 10 years ago."

In the early 1990s, before neighborhood policing was firmly established in
Boston, the police presence on tiny Nonquit Street in Dorchester was minimal
and residents didn't know each other's names. All that changed when one
African-American woman, Magnolia Munroe-Gordon, and one white woman,
Ruth Clarke, together planted a community garden in a vacant lot.

Munroe-Gordon lived next door to the vacant lot, which in those days was
used as a garbage heap by neighbors who hurled everything from old tires to
car parts to trash bags over the fence. But what really got to Munroe-Gordon
was the ragweed, which grew up to 10 feet tall, blew into her window, and
made her and her son sick with allergies. She couldn't get the city to mow it
down, so she decided to organize her neighbors to plant a community garden.
Clarke threw her support behind Munroe-Gordon and promised to help.

"I finally found someone who shared a dream," said Clarke. As the garden
evolved the neighbors got to know each other and began to discuss other
problems in the neighborhood.


"There [were] drug dealing [and] loud parties, and there were gang hangouts,"
Munroe-Gordon recalled. "It was pretty bad. We were under siege. . . .The
loud parties went from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. We would eventually call the police
department, but we'd get very little response." Finally, Clarke wrote a letter to
the superintendent of police and soon afterward officers started to make regular
visits to Nonquit Street.

"We started with flowers," recalled Aime Owens, a resident for 13 years. "Then
we started with telephone lines to each other when we saw things going on in
the street. [Today,] we all know each other. We know whose children [are
whose]."

Things have improved so much on Nonquit Street that 2 years ago it was
chosen as an official National Night Out site, visited by the cavalcade. This year
the neighborhood enjoyed a quieter, more intimate celebration, far from the
whirring lights of the police cars and the speechmaking of officials. As the
setting sun turned brick buildings a pale orange, neighbors gathered around long
tables adorned with colored crepe paper, set under street lamps, to share an
abundant homemade meal.

Children biked up and down Nonquit Street; one little boy backed into Officer
Edward Hairston's police bike, knocking it over. Hairston just laughed and
pinned a plastic "Junior Police" badge on the child's shirt. On National Night
Out Hairston didn't have enough of these popular badges to pass around. He
said National Night Out "unifies the community" and fosters communication with
adults who were involved with the police in the past. "You get together on a
one-on-one basis and privately talk about an incident that may have occurred a
year or two ago. . . . This is a good way to make things a lot smoother."

From tiny neighborhood picnics to parties for 1,000 people, National Night
Out in Boston has grown so much that as soon as the year's celebration
concludes, planning for the next one begins.

The neighborhood crime watch unit plans the largest citywide events. Captains
in each police district facilitate the planning of the main celebration in their
particular district and choose the site that the police cavalcade visits in their
district. On June 1 of every year the crime watch unit sends a letter to every
crime watch group in the city, offering technical assistance and asking the
groups to return a card detailing their plans. This information is then sent to the
captains of each district, who send police officers to every neighborhood
celebration.

The celebration kicks off days before the actual National Night Out with an
award ceremony for a children's poster contest. The 26 winning artists received
U.S. savings bonds for as much as $200 and art supplies. The entire event,
which includes a buffet meal for winners and their families, costs just under
$7,000 and is funded by donations from eight Boston businesses and
institutions. This year, organizers of the poster contest were pleased by the lack
of violence depicted in the posters.

Another major Boston event is the Crime Watch Awards ceremony. Ten crime
watch groups and one individual, the crime watcher of the year, are feted with
food and awards handed out by the mayor and police commissioner. In
addition, the city sponsors a mini-cavalcade on July 31 through three
neighborhoods and awards are presented to crime-fighting residents.

Among the award winners was the Groom/Humphreys Neighborhood Crime
Watch, which has grown dramatically since its founding 7 months before
National Night Out. The group, which includes Cape Verdean, Puerto Rican,
Cuban, Colombian, and African-American members, has worked closely with
the police to address safety issues including inadequate street lighting,
abandoned buildings, and intimidation by gangs.

At one point during the awards ceremony, Henry Fernando Bossa, a leader of
the group, got everyone on their feet to applaud the police officers in the room.
Since his group began meeting, relations with the police have improved
considerably, he said, with at least five police officers attending every crime
watch meeting. Police quickly respond to the group's requests for help and
information, he said, and put their lives on the line. "They do a heroic job."

Lodi, California

Susan Thoms usually is tap dancing her way across a floor on Tuesday nights,
but she let her class know she'd have to miss the lesson on August 3 because it
was National Night Out and her neighborhood was having a block party. No
problem, they decided: We'll hold class at the party.

So around 8 p.m., nine tap dancers and their leader, Susan Sixkiller, piled out
of cars into the street for a special performance in front of nearly three dozen
neighbors gathered on Howard Street. It was the sixth year that Howard Street
neighbors were celebrating the recovery of their neighborhood.

As the dancers tapped out "Put on Your Dancin' Shoes," Alice Baker recalled
the problems that led Howard Street to form a neighborhood watch group in
1994. "We were having trouble with drug dealing" at the house next to block
captain Cindy Jorey's, she remembered. "We would see young teenagers riding
their bikes with backpacks, they would go in the side door, and within minutes
they would come out and leave," she said. Her husband, Mayland, recalled,
"We got pictures of little school children going in and out of there. I'd go out in
the morning to get the newspaper, and at 5:30 some guy's sitting on a bicycle
across the street looking at me."

So the Bakers, Jorey, and others on the block started taking down license plate
numbers, pressuring the dealers and the landlord, and working with police. "At
one point we ran a biker out of our neighborhood," Alice Baker said. They
took up a collection to form the watch group and made plans for their first
National Night Out celebration. Within a month, the landlord finally evicted the
dealers, and another house next door where trouble seemed to be brewing also
was vacated.

Ever since, the Howard Street watch group has been one of Lodi's most active,
celebrating what Alice Baker calls a "very, very quiet neighborhood."

Groups like this are at the heart of Neighborhood Watch and National Night
Out for Mary Fuhs, the community services officer who organizes these
activities in Lodi each year. "I want people to understand they have power
within themselves to make positive changes," Fuhs said. Sometimes that may
mean something as simple as talking with a neighbor. "All we are doing," she
said, "is giving people an opportunity to do something they want to do and are
afraid to do in our society. They just need an excuse and we're giving them an
excuse."

Lodi, a city of 58,000, is located in central Joaquin County, the heart of
California wine country. A sign at the edge of town welcomes visitors to the
"U.S. Capital of Wine Grapes" and it is followed by vineyards and
advertisements for wine tastings along the road long before the city comes into
full view. But Lodi also has a sturdy manufacturing base, a large number of
dairies, and a significant commuter population (about a third of its working
population commutes to nearby Stockton and to as far away as Sacramento).

There are only about 350 residential burglaries and 350 car thefts a year in
Lodi--numbers that have held steady despite an increasing population--but the
city is one of the country's largest methamphetamine suppliers, with dozens,
perhaps hundreds, of mostly "Mom and Pop" labs scattered throughout the
area. Still, the labs do not appear to have engendered a substantial drug culture.
The number of drug-related crimes is small; one city detective said he has made
only one arrest in his career for cocaine and has never seen crack.

Lodi has an extraordinary spirit of volunteerism. Despite its small size, the city
has 180 active neighborhood watch groups, and this year organized 126 block
parties--some of them large enough to accommodate more than one group.
There are dozens of stories about their accomplishments--a car burglar
thwarted in one neighborhood, a thief identified and arrested in another--but the
story Lodians tell most often is about a 12-year-old girl who was kidnaped
from her home 5 years ago. More than 400 people turned up at the police
station offering to help. They immediately distributed 20,000 fliers, and the girl
was recovered within 21 hours.

Then there are the Volunteer Partners. Nearly 100 seniors over age 50 work
regular hours with the police department, checking cars and houses while
residents are on vacation, delivering evidence to Sacramento, or driving police
cars to a garage for maintenance. Two disabled seniors do computer work in
the office, and others handle traffic control or staff the found property
department. On National Night Out, it was the Partners who delivered pizzas to
the winners of a radio call-in contest. The Volunteer Partners program is so
popular that younger people often show up at police headquarters offering to
volunteer and have to be told they're not yet old enough.

All of this is the foundation for National Night Out, said police Chief Larry
Hansen, who started a community-policing program 5 years ago, a year after
taking over the department. "The whole concept of encouraging neighbors to
get to know each other again is like taking a step back in time," he said.
"Neighbors are being neighbors again."

Each year, Fuhs puts National Night Out together with $250 from the city, a
grant of a few thousand dollars from central California law enforcement
agencies, and contributions from local businesses and hundreds of volunteers.
She uses McGruff the crime-fighting dog, seat belt dummies, an electric display
board to promote electrical safety with children--anything available to get a
crime prevention message across.

Banners and posters are hung all over the city, and block captains post word of
the upcoming event with door-hangers. This year, Fuhs sent out a planning
newsletter early in the summer. "The point of National Night Out," she
reminded her circulation of 3,900, "is to spend the evening outside talking with
neighbors. . . . Talking, communicating, is what NNO is all about . . . [to]
create a sense of ownership and responsibility for the safety and welfare of
those who live in the neighborhood."

On National Night Out, 11 police officers, the police chief and commander,
the mayor, and several city council members gathered in the police briefing
room at 5:30 p.m. to get their orders for the evening. Many officers had
volunteered for the duty.

Fuhs handed out the gifts they would distribute: candy for the kids, engraving
pens so adults could mark their property, and Johnson Wax products and
coupons. Each person received an itinerary of parties, and the officers carried
"trading cards" with their signed pictures and a little information about them on
the back.

This year, for the first time, a group of businesses-the local newspaper, a bank,
a real estate agency, and the public library-started things off with a late
afternoon National Night Out party in the central business district. Organized by
Sandy Smith, a reference librarian, she noted that businesses have security
concerns, too, and thus reason to participate. What's more important, among
the business people, "We just personally have these ties now."

At 7 p.m., Fuhs went on the highway advisory radio channel and hosted a
safety call-in contest. Callers from block parties who answered traffic, safety,
and crime prevention questions won a free pizza from one of the local pizza
chains, delivered by a Volunteer Partner.

Fuhs treasures the stories of commitment to National Night Out: the block
captain who had a heart attack but still managed to organize his party; the
children who have moved away from Lodi but return on National Night Out for
a reunion; and the woman who decided to quit as block captain and introduced
her successor at the party. Then there was the time an old boyfriend and
girlfriend lived on the same street and didn't know it until they saw each other at
a National Night Out celebration.

Eleven neighborhood watch groups have stories that are longer; they have been
meeting for 10 years or more. Flo Celley organized her group on Tahoe Drive
and Modock Way for 10 years, winning a plaque posted to the telephone pole
outside her house for her achievements. More than 30 people from two blocks
attended the night's events, enjoying an extraordinary potluck dinner. This year
was Celley's swan song, and she was anxious for everyone to get connected
with Deborah Cameron, a younger woman who was taking on the job.
Cameron has personal experience with the power of neighborliness; when her
home burned down earlier this year, she turned to the people in her block for
help. "We're not nosy, but we're real concerned about each other," she said.

For Det. Brian Scott, traveling from party to party and chatting with people was
very much business as usual. "I do this anyway," said Scott, who grew up in
Lodi, moved away, and then moved back in 1979. "It lets people know we're
just regular people, too, but with a different job. This makes it easier for them
to approach you."

Across town on the 400 block of East Oak Street, 21 adults, 14 teenagers,
and 35 children were eating all types of foods. The block includes Hispanic,
East Indian, German, Irish, Japanese, and Chinese residents, and almost
everyone brought a dish to share. The children busied themselves with a
chalk-drawing contest, while some adults served as judges and others
discussed concerns about possible drug dealing in a house on the next block.

Block captain Joanne Mounce has been working for 7 years to clean things up.
The house she moved into in 1994 had been the home of a drug dealer. Across
the street, another dealer was running a profitable business. Through the
neighborhood watch group she helped establish, residents pressured the
landlord and he eventually sold the house. Recently, a young family moved in.

"When people move in we visit them and give them neighborhood watch
material, and bring them into what we consider a family," Mounce said.

Police Commander Jerry Adams was one of the block's visitors that night,
giving most residents "the only direct contact most people have with city
officials," Mounce noted.

"I think this makes a huge difference," said Adams. "The more [we] open lines
of communication, the more we can do our job. Neighborhood Watch is one of 
the truest forms of community policing. . . . You have [to have] successful
Neighborhood Watch programs before National Night Out works."

By the end of the evening, with a handful of parties still carrying on, Fuhs was
tired but satisfied. "I love the program," she said. "I believe in it because the
people embrace it."

Conclusion

In each of these cities and in thousands of others across the country, National
Night Out has become an occasion symbolizing what can happen when citizens
take responsibility for the well-being of their neighborhoods instead of looking
entirely to outside authorities to enforce public safety. It creates situations for
citizens and police to forge partnerships that help protect communities.

But the benefits go well beyond these formal relationships. At a time when
modern pressures tend to keep neighbors isolated from one another, National
Night Out gives them an opportunity to reconnect, to feel part of a community
to which they can contribute and from which they can draw support and
assistance. These connections generate a sense of ownership and responsibility
within neighborhoods, critical elements in a strong crime prevention program.

----------------------------

Notes

1. Sampson, R.J., S.W. Raudenbush, and F. Earls, "Neighborhoods and
Violent Crime: A Multilevel Study of Collective Efficacy." Science 277(August
15, 1997): 918-924. NCJ 173119.

2. Personal interview, September 1999.

----------------------------

For More Information 

For more information about National Night Out, contact:

National Association of Town Watch, Inc.
P.O. Box 303
Wynnewood, PA 19096
610-649-7055
World Wide Web: http://www.nationaltownwatch.org/nno.html

For more information about the Bureau of Justice Assistance Practitioner
Perspectives Series, contact:

Bureau of Justice Assistance
810 Seventh Street NW.
Washington, DC 20531
202-514-5947
 
To order publications or to find out more about BJA programs, contact:

Bureau of Justice Assistance Clearinghouse
P.O. Box 6000
Rockville, MD 20849-6000
1-800-688-4252
E-mail: askncjrs@ncjrs.org
World Wide Web: http://www.ncjrs.org

Clearinghouse staff are available Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 7:30
p.m. eastern time. Ask to be placed on the BJA mailing list.

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This series is dedicated to the exploration of vital issues in criminal justice
program development and management. Case studies highlight the work of
progressive, innovative people and programs in state and local criminal justice
systems. Although a case study may include a detailed description of the
operational aspects of a program, it is not a scientific program evaluation.
Rather, it is a document designed to explore the interaction of factors such as
collaboration, politics, resources, culture, and others that play a part in
successful public management.

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The Bureau of Justice Assistance is a component of the Office of Justice
Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National
Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention,
and the Office for Victims of Crime.

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NCJ 180775