What you seek is what you find?

I remember when I got my first car. From the moment I drove it off the lot, it seemed like every other car that I passed on the street was the exact same model and color. I know that the ratio of cars like the one I had just bought did not suddenly increase geometrically. But it was my perception that was exactly what had happened. It was on the top of my mind, so that's what I saw.

A couple of months ago, our neighborhood started a neighborhood watch program. A pretty run down mall in the immediate area has been recently renovated (actually torn down and completely rebuilt), and the increased traffic, and someone's initial initiative helped kick start the program. We actually live in one of the safest cities in the country for our size, but as the economy continues to struggle we're starting to see the impact a little more as the crime level creeps north a bit.

Some law enforcement assistance, education, a few signs and we were official. The intention was to make sure that we were all looking out for each other. Increased awareness is good for everyone.

As just something interesting to do, I decided to create a map on Google Maps to keep track of any issues that came up. I plot the date and incident on the neighborhood grid. Nothing fancy, not even anything particularly useful, but something for me to do. Thankfully, we've not had many incidents, but I'm questioning whether we've even had any more than we used to. Now that we're watching for, and more importantly communicating about any incidents that do occur, I know that there is a level of "you see what you look for" going on. There is certainly more crime in our neighborhood than I knew about before, but I'm not sure that nay of it is due to the increased shopping traffic.

I think it's a great thing to learn about things that go on around you. I think it's a great thing to be aware of what's going on around you. Whether the neighborhood watch is preventing crime or not, I can't tell, but it does make you aware. And maybe any ne're-do-wells might go somewhere else if they see our signs. Not the solution, but one step at a time.