The Effectiveness of Neighbourhood Watch

The results of previous systematic reviews of neighborhood watch presented in the introduction were divided in terms of the conclusions drawn. Titus (1984) concluded that neighborhood watch was effective, but noted that the research methods used to investigate this were weak. Husain (1990) concluded that there was little evidence that neighborhood watch worked. Sherman and Eck (2002) concluded that neighborhood watch was ineffective in reducing crime. The main findings of our narrative review were that just over half of the schemes evaluated (19) showed that neighborhood watch was effective in reducing crime, while only six yielded negative effects. The main finding of the meta analysis was that neighborhood watch was associated with a relative reduction in crime of between 16 and 26 per cent. The generally positive findings of the narrative review are consistent with the favorable effect found in the meta analysis. Hence, the dominant finding of our review, using both methods, is that neighborhood watch is effective in reducing crime.