A Tale of Two Projects: The Growth and Development of Two Neighbourhood Watch Schemes in South Wales

Abstract

Given the centrality of communities to crime reduction it is perhaps incumbent upon those working within criminology to probe deeper into communities' reaction to, and ability to deal with, crime and disorder. This is especially important to crime prevention professionals, given that local authorities now have a duty to sponsor and promote ‘community safety’. This paper reviews the preliminary findings of an on-going piece of research into one form of community response to crime reduction— neighbourhood watch schemes. It charts the development of two such groups, both of which suffered from a similar crime pattern, yet chose to address their particular problems in different ways.