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A WhatsApp-Alert-group with neighbours is a very effective way to prevent the neighbourhood against burglary. In some of the areas in Tilburg the burglary decreased with 50% as a result of the WhatsApp group. WhatsApp groups are a big success in the neighbourhood ‘Tanthof’ in Delft. After a closer examination of burglary in the neighbourhood ‘Tanthof’ the police informs that forming WhatsApp groups is a good measure to prevent burglary.

If you want to know whether there is a WhatsApp group in your neighbourhood you can visit the website wabp.nl. When there is an existent group, you can fill in your email address to join. Also at the website of your local authority you can find if there is a WhatsApp group in your neighbourhood.

When  there isn’t a WhatsApp group in your neighbourhood you can start one in three simple steps:

1.  Open WhatsApp, click on chats and add a new   group.

2. Give your group a name, like the name of your area and add a picture.

3. You have to add at least 2 group members, with the + sign.

Add neighbours:

You can add neighbours when you’ve started a new WhatsApp prevention group. You can do this in different kind of ways. You can visit them or maybe you can start a Facebook-page to attract their attention. When your start a new group then you will be the administrator, with this function you can add people and coordinate the rules in the group. Also you can start a WhatsApp group with all administrators in the area. In this group you can warn each other for a suspected vehicle.

Rules:

-  Participants are at least 18 years old.

-  Participants live in the neighbourhood.

-  The police only reacts when somebody calls  their emergency number 112. No emergency, but police needed? Please call 0900-8844.

- Let eachother know if the police has been called.

- Watch your language.

-  Don’t take the law in your own hands.

-  Only send pictures of a suspect if this is necessary

-  When you see a vehicle, remember the colour, brand and license number.

-  Use the WhatsApp group only for the right intention

https://www.consumentenbond.nl/beveiligingscamera/whats-app-buurtpreventie

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Have you ever seen a suspicious car in your neighbourhood, wanting to alert your neighbours?

I have, and in my neighbourhood we make use of a WhatsApp group chat to do this.  Community prevention is going through a development in the Netherlands and the number of townships using these group chats is still increasing.

But how do these chats work? Can everybody say whatever they want to, or do they have to obey certain rules? To find the answers to these questions I joined one of these group chats temporarily. In order to get access to the chat, I sent an email to the administrator. She replied with an email containing information on how to use the SAAR-method. “Everyone in the group chat is required to use this method. SAAR is an abbreviation for: Signal, Alert, App and React. The first step is to signal a suspicious person for example. The second step is to alert the emergency services. The third step is to send a message in the group chat  in order to inform the neighbours. The final step is to approach the suspicious person, however never do this alone for your own safety”.

Now that I knew about the SAAR-method, I was added to the chat. In this chat were over 200 people from the neighbourhood. The first message I received in the chat wasn’t formulated in the right way, so the administrator warned the sender of this message. From that moment on I knew that the people in this chat were serious and that the only purpose of this chat was to prevent criminal actions in the neighbourhood. In the time that I was a member of the chat I haven’t seen a suspicious person or car myself, but I received several messages from people who did.

For example, someone saw a man from middle age sit around the elementary school, sometimes in his car and sometimes walking around the building. This is the first step of the SAAR-method, to signal. After seeing this man several times she thought this was suspicious and called the local police office, the second step of the method, to alert. After calling the police, she sent a message in the group chat, in order to inform the other members. Due to this message, the members knew they had to be careful with their children around the school. Also the manager of the school was a member of the group chat, which means that he was informed too. The final step she took was visiting the manager of the school, so that they could ask the man what he was doing around the school. After a few hours the man was gone, this proved that the SAAR-method can be very effective!

After this experience I believe that group chats are a great benefit for community prevention, and that people are able to keep their own neighbourhood safe by using these group chats effectively.

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What does a neighbourhood watch mean to you?

A neighbourhood watch to me means there are people who keep a look out for strange things in the neighbourhood and keep the people in the neighbourhood on the loop of these strange things.  And try to prevent things from happening in the neighbourhood.

Is there a neighbourhood watch in your neighbourhood?

Yes there is a watch in my neighbourhood. It consist of every adult in my neighbourhood, they walk around sometimes in shift to lookout for strange things in the neighbourhood. There is also a WhatsApp group that consist of these people.

-          If so are you in such sort of group?

No I am not. My parents are in this group, so I don’t have to be in it. They want to keep out the children from this group because they don’t want any nonsense in the group chat, they only want serious things and they believe that children can’t take the group serious, so they only put the adults from the neighbourhood in it.

What is something you want in your neighbourhood to prevent crimes from happening?

There already is a neighbourhood watch installed in my neighbourhood. Maybe there should be more police patrols. So burglars and sorts are scared of from breaking in at sort. The can put up camera’s so they can use surveillance to spot unusual things in the neighbourhood.

Do you think neighbourhood watches are useful do you think they help prevent crimes?

Yes I believe they’re very useful. Because if people are on the lookout for unusual things and spot them before anything can happen. They can stop crime immensely in their neighbourhood. Because if they spot it they can do something about and scare away the perpetrators so they can’t do anything.