Frequently Asked Questions

Neighbourhood Watch (NHW) is a community-based crime prevention program which aims to improve the quality of life within a neighbourhood by minimising preventable crime and promoting closer community ties. The program relies on the community and the police working together in a partnership.

NHW aims to:

• encourage closer ties between community members and local police
• minimise the incidence of preventable crime
• deter criminal activity by increasing the probability of apprehension
• reduce the fear of crime
• increase the reporting of crime and suspicious behaviour
• improve the degree of personal and household security through education
• support the crime prevention activities of Victoria Police.

We support individuals and groups to create safer, stronger, more active communities. Thanks to our thousands of volunteers and groups in communities across Victoria, we’re able to share information, run events and activities, and work in partnership with Victoria Police and other local organisations to prevent crime and help people feel safer.

The very first meeting of the first group was held on 15 June 1983, in Kananook.

NHW as a concept originated in the United Kingdom. It started here in Victoria, when it was realised that the Victoria Police alone could not control the rising crime rate, in particular, the high number of burglaries and related thefts. Police sought public support to help reduce these crimes and decided to pilot a Neighbourhood Watch program with the Kananook community (a suburb of Frankston) in 1983. The success of this pilot saw the NHW program expand to other areas in 1984.

Victoria Police started the first Neighbourhood Watch pilot program in Victoria in 1983.

No. Since 2013, Neighbourhood Watch Victoria has been an independent, not-for-profit organisation. However, we continue to work closely with police on community crime prevention activities.

Neighbourhood Watch is a registered charity. We are independent of Government but work closely with the Department of Justice and Community Safety.

Our funding primarily comes from the Department of Justice and Community Safety. We also receive financial support from some of our corporate partners, such as our major partner RACV.

Yes, we are registered with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profit Commission.

Our state office has a team of 3 staff – CEO Bambi Gordon, Administration and Membership Manager Nicoll Peschek and Social Impact and Data Lead Adriana Sahrizan. We also have a 8-member independent volunteer Board.

Residential burglary offences in Victoria had increased every year before Neighbourhood Watch was introduced in Victoria – reaching a peak of 51,090 in 1984. The figures have never been that high since – police maintain that NHW’s intervention changed the residential burglary rate permanently. For comparison 21,804 residential burglary offences were recorded in 2022.

Over the past 40 years, we have seen crime rate reductions of 40% or more in areas that have Neighbourhood Watch groups. This coincides with increased levels of “perceptions of safety” among community members.

We have more than 190 groups spread across 55 of Victoria’s 79 local government areas. We have groups in metropolitan, regional and rural Victoria. Our state office is located at the Victoria Police Centre in Melbourne.

There is a local Neighbourhood Watch group in around 55 Local Government Areas (LGAs). Each group can comprise anywhere from 10 to 700-plus members and operate at a suburb, town, estate, or street level.

The local groups are supported by the State Office which prepares campaign and educational material to share both with member groups and the broader community through social media, events, newsletters, and other channels.

Where there is no local group, the State Office aims to support activities in that community until a new group is formed.

Groups meet with their local police regularly to find out what are the local crime issues.

They then undertake a range of activities including events, letterbox drops, seminars, forums, and community newsletters, all to assist in building awareness of the local crime issues, helping people to learn how to protect themselves from crime and encouraging people to report suspicious activity.

Where once success was measured by the number of volunteers we had across the organisation, we now look at success as the reach and impact of our brand on educating and motivating people to “target harden” against crime and to connect to their community. The reach and impact of our brand is enhanced by our volunteers working with their neighbours and local communities at the grassroots.

Use our Find a group locator to find your closed Neighbourhood Watch group.

Once you’ve found out if there’s a group in your area, fill out our new member enquiry form and we’ll put you in touch with them.

If there’s not a group in your area, you might be interested in starting one. Find out what’s involved here.

First, check out our Find a group locator to see if there’s already a group that covers your area. If there isn’t one:

• read about what’s involved in starting a group,
• complete our starting a new group form.
• Our State Office team will then answer all your questions, provide information and support and help you get started.

If there’s not currently an accredited local Neighbourhood Watch Facebook page for your area, please reach out to us using our starting a new group form and indicate your interest.

Once we have your completed NHW membership form and a National Police Check, we will set the page up for you and provide you with resources, guidelines and support to help get you started. All official Neighbourhood Watch Victoria Facebook pages must be accredited by our State Office.

Our local groups run lots of great activities such as school safety programs, graffiti removal working bees, community mural projects, tradies tools events, barbecues, neighbourhood picnics, home safety audits, Safe Plate events and heaps more.

The Crime Statistics Agency (CSA) is an independent organisation responsible for processing and analysing Victorian crime statistics and making them public. It’s where the public and community organisations can get accurate crime data, independent of Victoria Police. The figures are released quarterly – in March, June, September, and December. These releases include the number and rate of offences across Victoria, demographic characteristics of victims and alleged offenders and family and domestic violence incidents.

The Crime Statistics Agency website has an interactive tool called “Latest crime data by area” where you can see what’s going on in within your local government area (LGA), postcode, suburb or town.

The Data Visualisation tool presents the data for each LGA in a clear, visual, easy-to-understand format and provides statistics for the previous 10 years. The tabular visualisa

The Tabular Visualisation section, allows you to see statistics for your particular town or suburb over the past 10 years, including by offence type.

Read our simple step-by-step guide to accessing your local crime information.

NHW groups have close relationships with their local police and can get de-identified information on local issues and crimes and recent crimes trends. Most NHW groups publish this information at their regular meetings, in their newsletters or on their social media. It’s another great benefit of being involved with your local group.