NeighborAlerts

Law enforcement agencies can seldom solve public safety challenges alone. So in recent years they have turned increasingly to collaborative partnerships with the public to help to develop solutions and improve public trust. Individuals who live, work or otherwise have an interest in a community can help law enforcement agencies identify community concerns.

Community policing takes the view that the police and citizens are co-producers of police services, jointly responsible for reducing crime and improving the quality of life in local neighborhoods.

An important tenent of community policing is two-way communications with the public. Accurate and timely information makes problem-solving efforts more effective and creates ongoing dialogs and transparency. The gathering of this information helps the police identify and prioritize community concerns.

Yet it can be very challenging for law enforcement agencies to get their message to the public, and to elicit community input. Maintaining police department web sites requires significant human resources and expense. Relying on the media to communicate with the public poses other challenges, as the media often have their own agenda and often will not publish information a police department seeks to disseminate.

Enter NeighborAlerts, the revolutionary new online community which will aid community policing by increasing police contact with citizens in a positive setting. NeighborAlerts is inviting all law enforcement agencies to participate on the site, providing them – at no cost – with a dedicated place for direct two-way communications with NeighborAlerts members.

Each law enforcement agency will be provided with its own dedicated area on NeighborAlerts, where the agencies will be able to post immediately any information they choose. Furthermore, these dedicated areas will carry no advertising, thus maintaining a pure environment for the agencies messages. And because these dedicated areas will be prominently displayed on NeighborAlerts Communities, agencies can be certain the public will be reading their communications.

Increasing the flow of intelligence from citizens to police about offenses and offenders will help police gather evidence, increase the probability of arrests, and help police provide victim assistance. Increasing the flow of police intelligence about crime back to citizens will improve citizens' ability to protect themselves.