Neighborhood Watch

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Do not leave your vehicles unlocked

• Do not leave anything of value visible from outside your vehicle
• Park in your driveway or garage if possible
• Keep sheds and garages locked
• Leave your outside lights on all night
• Become more involved in your community, join your Civic League

If you are leaving town:

• Alert a trusted neighbor
• Stop newspaper and mail delivery
• Install timers on interior and exterior lights
• Leave a car parked in your driveway or ask a neighbor to park their car In your driveway
  

If you suspect anything out of the ordinary, see suspicious people, or see suspicious activity in the neighborhood: call the VBPD non

emergency number, 757-385-5000. Give them a description of the person or persons and describe why you feel they are acting suspicious. If you see an actual crime being committed or about to be committed, call VBPD at 911 immediately.
Some of us may be hesitant to report suspicious people or vehicles fearing that we will be regarded as “snoops”. Your own neighbors are your single best security device. The greatest deterrent to a would-be criminal is the fear of getting caught. Each concerned citizen is another pair of eyes to let the criminal know that he is being watched. You are a vital part of Neighborhood Watch. One or two people cannot watch 907 homes. It takes all of us to do our part. Thank you for doing your part it’s paying off.

From the "Lake Smith Ripples" November newsletter:

The 10 Principles of Crime Prevention

The 10 principles of crime prevention are:

1. Target Hardening

• Making your property harder for an offender to access.
• Upgrading the locks on your doors, windows, sheds and outbuildings
• Using secure passwords to prevent criminals from hacking your online accounts

2. Target Removal

• Ensuring that a potential target is out of view.
• Not leaving items on view through your windows – i.e. laptops, phones, keys, bags
• Being cautiou used to identify or locate you offlines about what you post online as it may be

3. Reducing the Means

• Removing items that may help commit an offense.
• Not leaving tools and ladders in the garden and clearing up any rubble/bricks

4. Reducing the Payoff

• Reducing the profit the criminal can make from the offense.
• Security marking your property
• Not buying property you believe or suspect to be stolen

5. Access Control

• Looking at measures that will control access to a location, a person or object
• Locking your doors and windows to both your house and your vehicle

6. Surveillance

• Removing high hedges / fences at the front of your home that allows an offender to work unseen
• Establishing a Neighborhood Watch

7. Environmental Change

• Ensuring your property and wider community looks cared for.
• Ensuring that graffiti and domestic/commercial waste is cleared up and reporting issues such as broken streetlights, damaged or missing road signs, etc.

8. Rule Setting

• Introducing a rule that the last person entering / leaving should lock the door and remove the keys

9. Increase the Chances of Being Caught

• Making use of dusk to dawn security lighting
• Inform a trusted neighbor when leaving for extended periods

10. Deflecting Offenders

• Using timer switches to make our homes look occupied if vacant after the hours of darkness

Sam Hribal, Civic League Vice President