Kudos to the 420+ residents of Cardinal Creek and South Fallingbrook who have signed up to be a part of that community’s Neighbourhood Watch initiative started by former Cardinal Creek Community Asso-ciation president Sean Crossan.

It always warms my heart when I hear of neighbours willing to help their fellow neighbours, especially when it comes to preventing crime and trying to keep their community safe.

It’s much easier to go into your garage in the morning, start your car, open the garage door and drive to wherever you’re going and then return home at night, open the garage door again, drive your car inside and close the garage door behind you without ever having to see your neighbours.

Joining Neighbourhood Watch means you’re accepting the responsibility to keep an eye out for suspicious behaviour on your street and in your neighbourhood and then reporting that behaviour to the police.

Crossan began the process to start a Neighbourhood Watch program in Cardinal Creek in response to several car thefts and break and enters in the community. And since he started recruiting members last spring, the number of criminal incidents in the community has gone down, but they’ve gone down across Orléans and not just Cardinal Creek.

One possible reason is that criminals don’t normally like to operate in the daylight, or when there’s a lot of people outside like during the summer. They much prefer to operate in the darkness when there’s no one around.

Neighbourhood Watch only works when people are watching and the wrong-doers can be seen.

Unfortunately, most car thieves operate in the middle of the night when most people are tucked into bed and are sound asleep. And most cars are stolen by professional car thieves who can get into your vehicle using electronic devices and drive off with it in less than three minutes.

The reason that Orléans is a hotbed for car theft is because of our close proximity to Hwy. 417. The professional car thief can get into your car and be halfway to Montréal before you even realize it’s gone. and by the time you talk to a police officer it’s already being loaded into a shipping container bound for West Africa.

The only way to effectively combat car theft is to have the proper enforcement in the Port of Montréal where 90 per cent of the cars stolen in Ottawa end up. But so far the authorities have been reticent to take the steps necessary to catch the thieves on a regular and ongoing basis.

Neighbourhood Watch won’t do much to stop car thieves who operate in the middle of the night. If you want to protect your car from being stolen you need to take the right preventative steps like installing motion-detecting spotlights and security cameras.

Installing a car alarm can also be an effective deterrent. As for steering wheel locking devices like The Club®, they can easily be removed by cutting the steering wheel. It might slow them down for a few seconds, but it won’t stop them.

Another good idea is to hide an GPS tracking device on your vehicle like an Apple or Google air tag. It won’t prevent it from being stolen, but it will help you find the car after the fact.

Other crime prevention steps require simple common sense, such as never leave your garage door open and always lock your doors. The same goes for your car. You would be shocked to find out how many people forget to lock their cars at night.

Another major issue since the pandemic has been the rise in theft of Amazon deliveries, reported as theft under $5,000 on the Ottawa Police Service’s data portal.

While Ring and other home security sys-tems utilizing a front door camera can act as a deterrent to would-be thieves it won’t stop them altogether. If you have a neighbour who works from home, you’re much better off to ask them to keep an eye out for your package.

While Neighbourhood Watch can be an important component of crime prevention, it is not a panacea. Far from it. Crime prevention is also a matter of individuals taking responsibility for protecting their own property. It also requires vigilance because crime can happen anywhere at any time and quite often when our guard is down we least expect it.

(If you wish to comment on this or any other View Point column please write to Fred Sherwin at fsherwin@orleansstar.ca)