Neighborhood alert is a police-supported community safety program that relies on neighbors reporting suspicious activity and working with local law enforcement to prevent crime. It promotes neighborhood involvement and communication with the Laurel Police Department, and stresses crime prevention through vigilance, education and community action (Stegenga 2000). It has proven to be a highly effective crime deterrent by creating safer streets and homes, stronger communities and camaraderie with neighbors, and good relations with the Police Department.
Crime data can be messy and confusing, doubly so when using essentially raw data that has been posted by authorities on various social media platforms and even triply so when you are dealing with multiple different types of data from a variety of sources.
This is why many neighborhoods use a private, secure and easy-to-use neighborhood alert app like Nextdoor to share trusted local news, real-time safety alerts, recommendations for services and businesses, homes for sale and rent, yard sales, and more. More than 100 million neighbors across 345,000 neighborhoods use Nextdoor to connect with the people and places that matter most to them.
A great feature of the neighborhood alert app is that you can set up a hard-to-forget, community-specific vanity number to be used by neighbors to let other members know they will be out of town and ask them to keep an eye on the house or put interior lights on timers for extra security. That way if something goes wrong, neighbors will have an immediate back-up to call in to let the criminals know they are being watched and they should flee the scene of the crime.