January 7, 2026 • 12 mins
Since 1972 neighborhoods have been officially banding together to prevent crime together. Does it work? It seems to. Does it go too far? It often does, yes.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
there's Chuck and this is short Stuff because Jerry's here
for Dave and we're talking about the neighborhood Watch. So
look out.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
I think the fact of this podcast is right off
the bat. Yep, Because if you've ever seen a neighborhood watch,
like the official neighborhood Watch sign is in the National
Neighborhood Watch program official organization. If you've ever seen that
sign and that I was going to say silhouetted, but
it's really just sort of a kind of a cartoony
(00:36):
black figure on those orange and white signs. It looks
very much like a film noir villain. That guy actually
kind of peering back over her shoulder. That dude has
a name, and it's Boris the Burglar.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Very get nice little trivia point.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yeah, I think one of the things that fascinates me
about this and why I picked this one, And also
thanks to Terry Yarlegata and Adoya Johnson, the first from
How Stuff Works, the latter from the Howard University School
of Law. But like, when I see signs like that,
they seem like an urban archaeological find because they're from
(01:13):
the seventies, the very early seventies, and sometimes in old
neighborhood and you know, Atlanta's chuck full of old neighborhoods.
You can tell that sign was put up in nineteen
seventy two. Yeah, yeah, and that neighborhood watch probably hasn't
functioned for forty years, you know, And I just find
that super fascinating. So because of that fascination, I've dragged
us into the discussion about neighborhood watch as it is.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
That's right, which was formed officially in nineteen seventy two
after a rise in crime in the late sixties.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Thank you leaded gas again.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
The National Neighborhood Watch Program is the official name, and
that's under the umbrella of the National Sheriff's Association, and
it's a national organization in that they have guidelines. You
can get some information in pamphlets on kind of how
to run one in your neighborhood. Although so we'll see
that kind of depends on your neighborhood what you want
to do with this program.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Sure, but they don't like there are way too.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Many neighborhood watch programs, you know, local ones for them
to really be involved in matter on a national level.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
It's just sort of the umbrella organization.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah, which can be a criticism, as we'll see, but
the whole idea is basically, you can the cops can
get an assist from people who are kind of looking
for problems in their neighborhood, or at the very least
are on enough lookout that when it happens, they notice
it right, they don't just walk right past it, and
(02:37):
then you can call the cops, and then the cops come,
and then the burglar boris the burglars thwarted. And all
of this is kind of based on what's called the
Chicago School of social disorganization theory. It's a sociological theory
from the twenties and the thirties which basically says, if
you have a neighborhood that doesn't have very strong social ties,
so neighbors don't really know each other that well, they
(02:58):
don't trust each other that well, very little community control,
where people feel very confident about just committing crimes. That's
the most vulnerable kind of neighborhood. And so a neighborhood
watch essentially is meant to at least take care of
the second one, where it's like, you know, we're going
to make sure you don't feel confident about committing crime,
but it doesn't necessarily fulfill the first one, which is
(03:20):
to bring communities together.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Yeah, that's right. We should mention kind of briefly that
For a little while. After nine to eleven, the NSA
got a grant from the Department of Justice where they
rebranded as USA on Watch, where they're like, hey, not
only should you just be looking out for boris the burglar,
but you should be looking out for terrorists in your neighborhood.
(03:42):
But that grant ran out and they said, yeah, maybe
we should just stick to being a neighborhood to watch.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Yeah, it went from keeping an eye on your neighborhood
to spying on your neighbors. I think was essentially the
spirit of it.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yeah, it's pretty read.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
But this was the era when the postal workers, the
mail carriers, we're expected to spy on everyone. Yeah. It
was a very paranoid time, understandably, so it was a
really rough time for the United States.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Yeah, some some would say there was a privacy grab
that happened, Oh I hadn't thought about that, or a
you know, a lack of privacy grab.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
I guess no, I get, I get what you mean.
An intrusion, an intrusive intrusion.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yeah, take a break for saying it just right.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Yeah right, Let's take a break, man, and we'll come
back and talk about whether these things actually prevent crime
in the first place. All right, we'll be right back, So, Chuck,
(04:57):
the idea of neighborhood watch makes sense, but not everything
that is intuitively right actually pans out when put under
scientific scrutiny. It turns out neighborhood watch programs do hold
up under scientific scrutiny. At least one study from all
the way back in two thousand and six, not a
lot of studies about neighborhood watch programs. Apparently, they found
(05:18):
eighteen other studies, and fifteen of those showed that neighborhood
watch programs seem to prevent crime, Like the neighborhood watch
program came along in a decline in crime happened afterward.
So it does seem like they can prevent crime. They
don't necessarily thwart crime in progress.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
I guess yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
I mean they will tell you, and proponents of the
program will say, like, hey, just having that sign up
in your neighborhood is going to prevent crime somewhat because
you know, if a ne'er do well sees that you're
under neighborhood watch, they'll just move on to another neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah. I don't know about that, but that's what they say.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Well, it makes sense, Like, especially a non professional who's
just like I'm going to break into houses, they might
give them a second thought. So and if it prevents
one burglary, it's a crime to trent.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
If you want to organize one of these things, you
can recruit people and get together.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
You can schedule some meetings.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
You can get some local law enforcement in there maybe
to come to one of those meetings and kind of
discuss how these things go. If you're like a really
buttoned down neighborhood watch group, you might have an actual
liaison with law enforcement. You might have a group coordinator
and block captains and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
They might have sashes. In the well funded neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Watch group, they might they might even have patrols. And
this is where it can get a little dodgy. Yeah,
because there have been plenty of instances in the United
States where these things have turned from sort of neighborhood
watch where you see something and you maybe called the
cops to people kind of acting on their own vigilanti style,
(07:02):
or people on their own calling the cops just because
someone is guilty of, you know, being a person of
color in their neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
That certainly happens all the time.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah, it does. So you talked about a lack of
oversight and the fact that the National Neighborhood Watch Association
just doesn't they can't possibly keep up with them. I
think there's something like twenty twenty eight thousand neighborhood watch
groups that are registered right now, and probably a lot
of them are defunct, but there's still that's way too
(07:34):
many for this probably just paper thin funded organization to
keep up with. So they're just like, hey, you know,
they register with us, so we tell them best practices,
but if they turn into vigilante groups we don't know about,
it has nothing to do with us. Some people are like,
I don't know if that's true. You're actually encouraging the
formation of these groups in the first place. You can
(07:56):
make an argument that a neighborhood would come up with
their own content of a neighborhood watch anyway, probably right,
So it does seem like the National Neighborhood Watch Association
is probably fairly at least not guilty. Their hands aren't dirty,
I guess, is what I'm trying to say. But even still,
they're quite aware that some of these neighborhood watch groups,
whether they're registered or not, do evolve INDI vigil anti groups. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
I mean, I think nationally their aim is pure. But
then when you get the wrong neighborhood and a wrong
group of people, like happened here in the state of Georgia,
you might have a neighborhood watch group targeting a family
that they don't like being there and sitting outside their
house and digging through their trash and photographing the family
and digitally audio recording them and monitoring their movements. That
(08:41):
has happened in Springfield, Missouri. The Klan set up a
neighborhood watch and had signs saying neighborhood watch. You can
sleep tonight knowing the Klan is awake.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah. Other we talked about well funded groups too. Some
of them will use police scanners. Some of them even
have invested those flashing dome lights like all nake a
Gunyah or police squad for their cars when they're going
to respond to a report.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Yeah, you're not a cop.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Still, this is your neighbor who works in it during
the day and frankly drinks one or two beers too
many each night, showing up with a flashing light at
your front door because your neighbor across the street thought
that you were doing something suspicious or somebody was doing
something suspicious at your house. Yeah, that is not okay
(09:32):
under basically any circumstance. Again, like you said, the concept
is pure, it gets perverted way too easily because it
gives power to the people who want the power, because
those are the ones very often who volunteer for this stuff.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Yeah, for sure. And you know, I talked about different
crimes that were committed. Of course, the most obvious is
when George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager
in Sanford, Florida, in twenty twelve. And Zimmerman, you know,
supposedly was a neighborhood watch volunteer. And I think their
neighborhood watch was not one of the official under the
(10:08):
National Neighborhood Watch at least a National neighborhood watches, like
they weren't us, right, but that's how far it can go. So,
you know, we want to keep our neighborhood safe, but
settle down.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Man, that was this seems like a lifetime ago, doesn't it.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Man, yeah, that's it was sort of. I mean, what
twenty twelve? How many years ago is at thirteen?
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Yeah, yep, right on the nose, so there is. Yeah,
there's nothing inherently wrong with keeping an eye on your neighborhood,
especially if it helps you meet some of your neighbors
and you guys work together to prevent people from breaking
into your homes or selling drugs on your street or whatever. Like,
it's totally understandable. It seems like, according to the National
(10:51):
Neighborhood Watch Association that the kind of the steps that
they've laid out since nineteen seventy two are not necessarily
fall But that doesn't mean that groups are just not forming.
They're forming in other ways through like text chains, like
you know, neighborhood text threads. There's a lot of neighborhoods
(11:11):
at Facebook pages. Next Door is a big one. Yeah. Yeah.
If you want to read some crazy off of the
chain stuff like go on to next door. It can
be pretty entertaining and then ring, which is that that
camera video doorbell, the first one I think now is
owned by Amazon. They partner with law enforcement and they're
(11:32):
really doing their best to fill in the gaps in
the police state.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Yeah, and if you're.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
If you want to get one of these started in
your neighborhood and want to be on the up and
up and do it the right way, you can go
to that National Neighborhood Watch website and get officially registered.
They will have some resources to kind of guide you along.
But again, you know, do it, do it the right way.
It's not a crime to just be in your neighborhood.
And you see plenty of, you know, the videos every
(12:00):
day on social media where somebody, you know, sometimes someone
that does live in that neighborhood is even accosted because
they're a person of color who dares to park in
their own driveway and walk to their own front door.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
That has happened before. Yeah, yeah, I think won't jeez
check the show stuffs out on that bomber note.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
I think, so okay. Stuff you should Know is a
production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit
the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts, or
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
there's Chuck and this is short Stuff because Jerry's here
for Dave and we're talking about the neighborhood Watch. So
look out.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
I think the fact of this podcast is right off
the bat. Yep, Because if you've ever seen a neighborhood watch,
like the official neighborhood Watch sign is in the National
Neighborhood Watch program official organization. If you've ever seen that
sign and that I was going to say silhouetted, but
it's really just sort of a kind of a cartoony
(00:36):
black figure on those orange and white signs. It looks
very much like a film noir villain. That guy actually
kind of peering back over her shoulder. That dude has
a name, and it's Boris the Burglar.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Very get nice little trivia point.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yeah, I think one of the things that fascinates me
about this and why I picked this one, And also
thanks to Terry Yarlegata and Adoya Johnson, the first from
How Stuff Works, the latter from the Howard University School
of Law. But like, when I see signs like that,
they seem like an urban archaeological find because they're from
(01:13):
the seventies, the very early seventies, and sometimes in old
neighborhood and you know, Atlanta's chuck full of old neighborhoods.
You can tell that sign was put up in nineteen
seventy two. Yeah, yeah, and that neighborhood watch probably hasn't
functioned for forty years, you know, And I just find
that super fascinating. So because of that fascination, I've dragged
us into the discussion about neighborhood watch as it is.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
That's right, which was formed officially in nineteen seventy two
after a rise in crime in the late sixties.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Thank you leaded gas again.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
The National Neighborhood Watch Program is the official name, and
that's under the umbrella of the National Sheriff's Association, and
it's a national organization in that they have guidelines. You
can get some information in pamphlets on kind of how
to run one in your neighborhood. Although so we'll see
that kind of depends on your neighborhood what you want
to do with this program.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Sure, but they don't like there are way too.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Many neighborhood watch programs, you know, local ones for them
to really be involved in matter on a national level.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
It's just sort of the umbrella organization.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah, which can be a criticism, as we'll see, but
the whole idea is basically, you can the cops can
get an assist from people who are kind of looking
for problems in their neighborhood, or at the very least
are on enough lookout that when it happens, they notice
it right, they don't just walk right past it, and
(02:37):
then you can call the cops, and then the cops come,
and then the burglar boris the burglars thwarted. And all
of this is kind of based on what's called the
Chicago School of social disorganization theory. It's a sociological theory
from the twenties and the thirties which basically says, if
you have a neighborhood that doesn't have very strong social ties,
so neighbors don't really know each other that well, they
(02:58):
don't trust each other that well, very little community control,
where people feel very confident about just committing crimes. That's
the most vulnerable kind of neighborhood. And so a neighborhood
watch essentially is meant to at least take care of
the second one, where it's like, you know, we're going
to make sure you don't feel confident about committing crime,
but it doesn't necessarily fulfill the first one, which is
(03:20):
to bring communities together.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Yeah, that's right. We should mention kind of briefly that
For a little while. After nine to eleven, the NSA
got a grant from the Department of Justice where they
rebranded as USA on Watch, where they're like, hey, not
only should you just be looking out for boris the burglar,
but you should be looking out for terrorists in your neighborhood.
(03:42):
But that grant ran out and they said, yeah, maybe
we should just stick to being a neighborhood to watch.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Yeah, it went from keeping an eye on your neighborhood
to spying on your neighbors. I think was essentially the
spirit of it.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yeah, it's pretty read.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
But this was the era when the postal workers, the
mail carriers, we're expected to spy on everyone. Yeah. It
was a very paranoid time, understandably, so it was a
really rough time for the United States.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Yeah, some some would say there was a privacy grab
that happened, Oh I hadn't thought about that, or a
you know, a lack of privacy grab.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
I guess no, I get, I get what you mean.
An intrusion, an intrusive intrusion.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yeah, take a break for saying it just right.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Yeah right, Let's take a break, man, and we'll come
back and talk about whether these things actually prevent crime
in the first place. All right, we'll be right back, So, Chuck,
(04:57):
the idea of neighborhood watch makes sense, but not everything
that is intuitively right actually pans out when put under
scientific scrutiny. It turns out neighborhood watch programs do hold
up under scientific scrutiny. At least one study from all
the way back in two thousand and six, not a
lot of studies about neighborhood watch programs. Apparently, they found
(05:18):
eighteen other studies, and fifteen of those showed that neighborhood
watch programs seem to prevent crime, Like the neighborhood watch
program came along in a decline in crime happened afterward.
So it does seem like they can prevent crime. They
don't necessarily thwart crime in progress.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
I guess yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
I mean they will tell you, and proponents of the
program will say, like, hey, just having that sign up
in your neighborhood is going to prevent crime somewhat because
you know, if a ne'er do well sees that you're
under neighborhood watch, they'll just move on to another neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah. I don't know about that, but that's what they say.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Well, it makes sense, Like, especially a non professional who's
just like I'm going to break into houses, they might
give them a second thought. So and if it prevents
one burglary, it's a crime to trent.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
If you want to organize one of these things, you
can recruit people and get together.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
You can schedule some meetings.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
You can get some local law enforcement in there maybe
to come to one of those meetings and kind of
discuss how these things go. If you're like a really
buttoned down neighborhood watch group, you might have an actual
liaison with law enforcement. You might have a group coordinator
and block captains and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
They might have sashes. In the well funded neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Watch group, they might they might even have patrols. And
this is where it can get a little dodgy. Yeah,
because there have been plenty of instances in the United
States where these things have turned from sort of neighborhood
watch where you see something and you maybe called the
cops to people kind of acting on their own vigilanti style,
(07:02):
or people on their own calling the cops just because
someone is guilty of, you know, being a person of
color in their neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
That certainly happens all the time.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah, it does. So you talked about a lack of
oversight and the fact that the National Neighborhood Watch Association
just doesn't they can't possibly keep up with them. I
think there's something like twenty twenty eight thousand neighborhood watch
groups that are registered right now, and probably a lot
of them are defunct, but there's still that's way too
(07:34):
many for this probably just paper thin funded organization to
keep up with. So they're just like, hey, you know,
they register with us, so we tell them best practices,
but if they turn into vigilante groups we don't know about,
it has nothing to do with us. Some people are like,
I don't know if that's true. You're actually encouraging the
formation of these groups in the first place. You can
(07:56):
make an argument that a neighborhood would come up with
their own content of a neighborhood watch anyway, probably right,
So it does seem like the National Neighborhood Watch Association
is probably fairly at least not guilty. Their hands aren't dirty,
I guess, is what I'm trying to say. But even still,
they're quite aware that some of these neighborhood watch groups,
whether they're registered or not, do evolve INDI vigil anti groups. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
I mean, I think nationally their aim is pure. But
then when you get the wrong neighborhood and a wrong
group of people, like happened here in the state of Georgia,
you might have a neighborhood watch group targeting a family
that they don't like being there and sitting outside their
house and digging through their trash and photographing the family
and digitally audio recording them and monitoring their movements. That
(08:41):
has happened in Springfield, Missouri. The Klan set up a
neighborhood watch and had signs saying neighborhood watch. You can
sleep tonight knowing the Klan is awake.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah. Other we talked about well funded groups too. Some
of them will use police scanners. Some of them even
have invested those flashing dome lights like all nake a
Gunyah or police squad for their cars when they're going
to respond to a report.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Yeah, you're not a cop.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Still, this is your neighbor who works in it during
the day and frankly drinks one or two beers too
many each night, showing up with a flashing light at
your front door because your neighbor across the street thought
that you were doing something suspicious or somebody was doing
something suspicious at your house. Yeah, that is not okay
(09:32):
under basically any circumstance. Again, like you said, the concept
is pure, it gets perverted way too easily because it
gives power to the people who want the power, because
those are the ones very often who volunteer for this stuff.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Yeah, for sure. And you know, I talked about different
crimes that were committed. Of course, the most obvious is
when George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager
in Sanford, Florida, in twenty twelve. And Zimmerman, you know,
supposedly was a neighborhood watch volunteer. And I think their
neighborhood watch was not one of the official under the
(10:08):
National Neighborhood Watch at least a National neighborhood watches, like
they weren't us, right, but that's how far it can go. So,
you know, we want to keep our neighborhood safe, but
settle down.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Man, that was this seems like a lifetime ago, doesn't it.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Man, yeah, that's it was sort of. I mean, what
twenty twelve? How many years ago is at thirteen?
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Yeah, yep, right on the nose, so there is. Yeah,
there's nothing inherently wrong with keeping an eye on your neighborhood,
especially if it helps you meet some of your neighbors
and you guys work together to prevent people from breaking
into your homes or selling drugs on your street or whatever. Like,
it's totally understandable. It seems like, according to the National
(10:51):
Neighborhood Watch Association that the kind of the steps that
they've laid out since nineteen seventy two are not necessarily
fall But that doesn't mean that groups are just not forming.
They're forming in other ways through like text chains, like
you know, neighborhood text threads. There's a lot of neighborhoods
(11:11):
at Facebook pages. Next Door is a big one. Yeah. Yeah.
If you want to read some crazy off of the
chain stuff like go on to next door. It can
be pretty entertaining and then ring, which is that that
camera video doorbell, the first one I think now is
owned by Amazon. They partner with law enforcement and they're
(11:32):
really doing their best to fill in the gaps in
the police state.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Yeah, and if you're.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
If you want to get one of these started in
your neighborhood and want to be on the up and
up and do it the right way, you can go
to that National Neighborhood Watch website and get officially registered.
They will have some resources to kind of guide you along.
But again, you know, do it, do it the right way.
It's not a crime to just be in your neighborhood.
And you see plenty of, you know, the videos every
(12:00):
day on social media where somebody, you know, sometimes someone
that does live in that neighborhood is even accosted because
they're a person of color who dares to park in
their own driveway and walk to their own front door.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
That has happened before. Yeah, yeah, I think won't jeez
check the show stuffs out on that bomber note.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
I think, so okay. Stuff you should Know is a
production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit
the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts, or
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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