VPD hires 2 to organize neighborhood watches

Published 12:00 am Friday, November 6, 2009

Danitta Reed and Darnisha Cash were introduced Thursday as part of the Vicksburg Police Department’s response to residential crime. As community relations officers, they will find out where neighborhood associations are organized, assist them and work to organize more.

“With all the influx of crime that has been occurring lately in regard to auto burglaries and residential burglaries, we want to let the community know, if they want a Neighborhood Watch program in their neighborhood, all they have to do is give us a call, and we’ll set it up,” said veteran Vicksburg police Sgt. Beverly Prentiss, who is training the department’s new officers.

Assistant Chief Jeffery Scott said crime rates for areas of higher socioeconomic profiles with active programs tend to have much lower crime rates than those with lower profiles that do not have programs.

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“We want to make sure we organize on both sides of the tracks. We don’t want to leave any particular neighborhood out because of economic factors,” Scott said. “We want to make sure everybody has an opportunity to have input as to what happens in their neighborhood.”

Forty-eight auto and 34 home burglaries have been reported in Vicksburg in the past month, with arrests of teens following several and no arrests in others. Few residential areas have escaped the crimes.

Prentiss said responsibilities for Reed and Cash will be to identify neighborhood associations and help form others. Neighborhood Watch is a program that raises awareness and teaches residents to be looking for signs, such as a different car parked on a street, as well as crime avoidance techniques. It is not designed to make police officers out of citizens, but to put them at ease in communicating with law enforcement.

“If you see a crime in progress, you don’t take it upon yourself to try to chase them down and do something about it. You get the clothing description, the tag information — whatever’s helpful,” Prentiss said, and relay the information accurately.

Reed and Cash will not have the authority to make arrests. They will also begin speaking with businesses on spotting shoplifting and addressing a shoplifter.

Scott said watches throughout a city are more successful when separate groups communicate with each other.

“That way, when there’s a problem, these different entities could communicate,” he said.

The citywide watch effort will be coupled with TRIAD, a three-way organization between the National Association of Chiefs of Police, the sheriff’s department and AARP that prevents crime and works with senior citizens to keep them safe in terms of community relations, Prentiss said.

“TRIAD basically has meetings once a month, and we talk about what’s going on in the community,” she said.

Officials are working initially with seniors because they are more apt to see and report crimes because many are at home during the day.

“We don’t want an incident to be the catalyst for a neighborhood organizing. We want this to be a year-round project for neighborhoods,” Scott said.

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Contact Tish Butts at tbutts@vicksburgpost.com