Your home is your castle, and it’s important that you and your family feel safe there. Being aware of your surroundings and paying attention to what happens in your neighborhood is an important part of neighborhood safety. The sheriff’s office can’t monitor your home 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but your neighbors can, and that is where Neighborhood Watch plays a vital role.

Neighborhood Watch is a joint effort between the Adams County Sheriff’s Office and the community designed to instill a greater sense of security and reduce the fear of crime by putting the neighbor back into neighborhoods.

The program teaches participants how to make their home and neighborhood more secure in order to reduce the risk of being victimized, as well as training citizens on how to recognize and report any suspicious activity. Neighborhood Watch allows neighbors to get to know each other and their routines in order to address issues that concern the safety of the entire community.

As an added component to the Neighborhood Watch Program, the Adams County Sheriff’s Office has started a new project called “Project Stay Informed.” Essentially crimes will be plotted on a map and areas that have multiple crimes will receive a Neighborhood Watch alert that is sent by the Adams County Sheriff’s Office to the Neighborhood Watch coordinator. The information would then trickle down through block captains and into neighborhoods to keep citizens more informed and alert. The goal is to have more eyes and ears assisting with fighting crime. Citizens will be getting up-to date information on crime problems in their neighborhoods, which could assist the Adams County Sheriff’s Office if residents call in what they see and hear. This assistance will help the sheriff’s office in solving more crimes and/or eliminating the criminal element from neighborhoods. This project is another way to assist us all with making Adams County a safer community.

Start 2013 off in the right direction with a Neighborhood Watch Group in your area or watch for local announcements of meetings in your area and join us!

For more information on this program or to start a Neighborhood Watch Group contact me at 601-442-2752 or ctaylor@adamscosheriff.org.

To report a crime anonymously call 601-442-2752 or visit www.adamscosheriff.org and send us an e-mail.

Courtney Taylor is the public information officer and ACSO Neighborhood Watch liaison for the Adams County Sheriff’s Office.