Mitternight Park Neighborhood Watch Receives a 2005 Neighbor Watch Award of Excellence

Nov 3rd, 2005

2005 Neighborhood Watch Award of Excellence for a Group:
Mitternight Park Community Action Group
The largest single Neighborhood Watch group in the city of Mobile, AL, the Mitternight Park Community Action Group started with just four people. Today, under the leadership of Laura Breland, fifty to sixty people regularly attend monthly meetings, in addition to various committee meetings that take place throughout the month. But this success did not come easily.

“Our Neighborhood Watch consists of a group of dedicated women whose goal was to eradicate crime in an older neighborhood into which a number of younger families with children had to begun to move,” explained Breland. “Unfortunately, our group first faced credibility challenges in that people found it hard to believe that a group of ladies was serious about fighting crime.” To combat the naysayers, the ladies began keeping log books of calls to police and fire officials and logged patrol hours and suspicious vehicles in the neighborhood. “After assisting the Mobile Police Department and the Mobile County Sheriffs’ Office with drug arrests and the closing of a methamphetamine lab at a neighborhood home, we finally gained the credibility we had been seeking so fervently,” explained Breland.

And their work didn’t stop there. As a result of logging over 200 “911” emergency calls to the Mobile Police Department and the Mobile Fire-Rescue in just two years, crime in area neighborhoods dropped significantly from as many as 20 calls for service to just two calls per month. In addition, the group assisted the Mobile Police Department Narcotics team with raids at a local motel that had been under investigation.

Since the beginning, the mission of the group has been to consistently find ways to affirmatively promote and preserve a feeling of security and safety for all citizens of the Mitternight Park area and the City of Mobile, AL. One of the ways it has sought to accomplish this goal is by aiding in crime reduction by having each street in the area represented by a block captain and co-captain In just one year, the group had logged over 3,000 hours of patrol time. In addition, the group also has sought to educate the residents of the community on crime-prevention issues.

Community efforts, in fact, have played a major role in the success of the group. As such, the group has encouraged community members to use a buddy system to travel at night; it has served as a liaison between the community and the Mobile Police Department; it regularly communicates with the community via phone, personal contact, and a regularly-distributed newsletter; and it conducts a number of social activities, such as picnics and community garage sales to promote comradeship among residents.

Currently, the group is working on expanding the Neighborhood Watch program as well as mentoring other area neighborhood watch groups and helping them learn how to build effective Neighborhood Watch groups.

“The most exciting aspect of being named recipient of the 2005 Award of Excellence is that our efforts have finally been validated,” said Breland. “We have worked long and hard to gain the trust and confidence of neighbors who were dedicated and committed to one common goal: to eliminating crime and making our neighborhoods the safest in Mobile.”