The Neighbors are Watching: From Offline to Online Community Policing in Oakland, California
By Fan Mai & Rebecca Jablonsky, CTSP Fellows | Permalink
As one of the oldest and most popular community crime prevention programs in the United States, Neighborhood Watch is supposed to promote and facilitate community involvement by bringing citizens together with law enforcement in resolving local crime and policing issues. However, a review of Neighborhood Watch programs finds that nearly half of all properly evaluated programs have been unsuccessful. The fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, an appointed neighborhood watch coordinator at that time, has brought the conduct of Neighborhood Watch under further scrutiny.
Founded in 2010, Nextdoor is an online social networking site that connects residents of a specific neighborhood together. Unlike other social media, Nextdoor maintains a one-to-one mapping of real-world community to virtual community, nationwide. Positioning itself as the platform for “virtual neighborhood watch,” Nextdoor not only encourages users to post and share “suspicious activities,” but also invites local police departments to post and monitor the “share with police” posts. Since its establishment, more than 1000 law enforcement agencies have partnered with the app, including the Oakland Police Department. Although Nextdoor has helped the local police to solve crimes, it has also been criticized for giving voices to racial biases, especially in Oakland, California.