MANDEVILLE, Manchester — Local security experts are urging Jamaicans to relaunch and expand neighbourhood watch programmes, many of which have fizzled, despite proving effective in countering crime in the past.

The recommendation was made by Guardsman Group Director George Overton, criminologist Dr Jason McKay, and Sentry Security General Manager Christopher Senior at a crime summit last Tuesday at Neil’s Auditorium in Mandeville organised by Manchester Custos Garfield Green.

Arguing that communities need to return to being united, Overton said, “We all need to understand that we need to look out for our communities. We need to question strangers and new faces in our communities, because we don’t know who others may bring into that community. We endanger ourselves, and when people flee from other communities they need to find a way to survive and surviving is robbery, house breaking and all the other things that come with it.”

Dr McKay, who runs his own security company and writes a weekly Sunday Observer column, said communities need to protect themselves from harbouring migrant criminals.

“Usually we were able to predict when robberies would start to occur in communities, because they were usually committed by people who were auxiliary to the community,” he said.

“This has changed everywhere to include Manchester. Because of scamming you have guys who can afford to rent houses in your community. Scammers may not go out there and break into people’s houses, but they attract persons into the community who would not normally be around particular rural communities — places that don’t normally harbour criminals,” he said, adding that the migration of criminals into communities is a challenge for the police.

“They (scammers) bring them in there in large numbers, because of their association and then you start to see an increase in crime. A lot of times the police force is not going to know the people who appear to be scammers [and who] are actually operating in your community,” he said.

“There is this misnomer, popularised by persons in the music industry, that it (scamming) is a victimless crime and it is a crime glorified in music by artistes, it very much isn’t. Let us put that to sleep right now. The money you see them spending, if you are benefiting from it one way or another you are benefiting from persons’ misery,” he stated.

He reiterated the dangers associated with scamming including the influx of illegal firearms and gang activity.

“But, for the regular guy on the street, this person is also creating a risk to you also apart from the fact that they are purchasing guns and giving them out to persons in their gang and hiring other gangs to protect them. They are drawing people to them and the type of persons they are attracting are [those] who are going to commit crimes in your community,” he explained.

Custos Green, who is a former president of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, pointed out that some neighbourhood watches have “failed” because of human and technical inadequacies in the alert systems.

“One of the things that I think has caused neighbourhood watches to die overtime or become inactive is the system to alert each other. We have come up with many things that never work over a long time; we have tried the whistle, we have tried some alarm systems, sometimes we have had drills [but sometimes] we can’t find the whistle [or] the battery in the alarm died,” he said, even as he acknowledged that people are more focused on investments in technology for their own security.

“Maybe, we can have something that when it is sounded in a community we know definitely we are calling for help, other than the regular alarm sound,” he suggested.

“Because even in my community we hear alarms going off and people just sit still. But if there is a special alarm sound that, once we hear it we know that something is going on,” he offered.

“I think technology has pushed the neighbourhood watch to the back. We have to be creative now to revive it and find means to get people to be active,” he added.

Meanwhile, Senior argued that neighbourhood watches are central to security in Mandeville.

“The police have been begging us to establish and keep alive neighbourhood watches,” he said, while lamenting that people have taken on a “very impersonal way of living”.

“We cannot be living in a community and don’t know each other. Can you imagine your neighbour’s car is broken down on the street and you drive past him and don’t even recognise him,” he said.

“We cannot accept things as being normal any more. Our environment is in a very precarious place and there are some of us who will have to take the chance to stand for what is right. If we don’t do that we are going to be overrun by the minority. Crime is high, yes, but they (criminals) are in the minority,” he argued.