Neighborhood Watch:

     Our goal is to establish Neighborhood Watches in as many communities in our five beats as we can. Together, the Marion County Sheriff's Office and Neighborhood Watchers can detour criminal activities within our county for a better, safer place to live, work and raise our family.

     A citizen's involvement program, where citizens, in cooperation with local law enforcement, directly participate in the detection and prevention of crime. Neighborhood Watch is citizens working together to make their community a better, safer place to live.

     On a national scale, there is approximately one Police Officer for every 2,000 citizens. From a practical standpoint, many police officers are not actively involved in patrolling their community. These officers are also assigned to other tasks such as investigative work, administrative duties, traffic enforcement, report writing, court appearances, etc. These necessary functions limit the available police manpower for the neighborhood patrol. Having a Neighborhood Watch in your community will greatly aid the Marion County Sheriffs Office in their investigations. Obviously, there are more citizens than police officers. Neighborhood Watch Citizens become an extension of the Sheriff's Office "eyes" and "ears."

     Early in 1970, a concerned citizen named Ellie Wegner became outraged when a close neighborhood friend of hers was raped. She asked a group of neighbors over to see what could be done to help this crime victim. At her first meeting, 40 people from the neighborhood showed up, many were life long neighbors but had never met. At the second meeting, more neighbors showed up, all having a common concept: "Neighbors could watch out and care for each other." Each member was assigned an area of the neighborhood, if the need arose, a member was there to offer aid to a victim by reporting a crime to the police. Since 1970, neighbors have joined forces in Neighborhood Watch for this same purpose.