Business Watch establishes links among businesses and law enforcement. Basically, Business Watch are businesses (sometimes with community groups) taking systematic steps to reduce opportunities for crimes in and around business locations. It includes training business personnel to be eyes and ears for law enforcement.
In Business Watch areas, crime prevention officers and business leaders assist business owners, operators, and employees in dealing with crime by:
* Effectively observing and reporting to law enforcement on crimes and suspicious activities that could lead to crime.
* Operation identification: marking all equipment, machines, etc., with traceable identification numbers for deterrence and tracing.
* Robbery prevention: eliminating "easy prey" crime opportunities.
* Burglary prevention: adding security measures to impede criminals, detect criminal activity, and communicate with the law enforcement.
* Self-protection: learning to recognize dangerous situations, and learning how to prevent, avoid, or flee them.
* Employee education: topic oriented training which increases employee understanding of key workplace issues. Business Watch programs often have a business leader act as the block security chief for the participating businesses. One or more law enforcement officers are usually assigned to be the liaison with the Business Watch group. The local civic association or other community groups may also participate, lending extra eyes and ears, especially for periods when the businesses are closed. Sometimes the businesses are linked to each other and to a law enforcement agency through radio or fax machine message trees. Radio-equipped delivery and service vehicles may also become part of business watch.
Key partnerships are those among the businesses and business people themselves and their organization and leaders. They, in turn, form a key partnership with your local law enforcement agency, and especially with its crime prevention or watch liaison officers. Other partners can be the local citizens' association, church, Chamber of Commerce, or other groups interested in a safe and prosperous business base in the community.
