Oxford Watch Proposal

Colin Atwater, Tucker Robinson, Megan Neiheisel, Chris Viens,

Sara Meurer

Letter of Transmittal
To whom it may concern:
Oxford Watch is writing to inform you and propose a community neighborhood watch
group that will increase safety and educate students to be safe in their off campus housing.
Oxford Watch in coordination with Oxford Police and Miami University police want to make our
community a safer place for students and residents to enjoy. With the recent rise in crime, Oxford
Watch wants students to feel safe and comfortable no matter what time of day they are out and
about in Oxford. We believe that this organization would also be a great segway for students to
be more involved in the Oxford community and help make some improvements that they want to
see.
Oxford Watch is committed to making the Miami University safer and believes that there
would be enough interest from students and other community members to help make this group a
success. Oxford Watch wants to be able to build a better relationships among students,
community members, and those officers who patrol the community. By getting students involved
Oxford Watch is able to make them more proactive community in allowing them to help those
around them and making the place where they live safer.
As Oxford Watch works to build a bond between students and the existing community,
we hope that this will encourage students to be more aware of their surroundings and not be
afraid to speak up if they say something. While our efforts will involve recruiting students and
other community members first to be some of the first volunteers for Oxford Watch we have no
doubt that this is something that is feasible. There will be great benefits that will come to
students through being apart of the program and also being able to feel like they have given back
and helped a place where they reside as a temporary home for four years.
Sincerely,
The Oxford Watch

Executive Summary
The Oxford Watch is trying to create a neighborhood watch community program to help
increase the safety and wellbeing of the area. This would be done by having a student driven
program with scheduled rounds through the areas of high potential risk of crime. Rounds are
done to help decrease the threat of crime occurring by showing potential offenders that there is a
law abiding presence.
While getting enough students would be the hardest part of the program, since it is
entirely student driven, testing and polling of the idea has shown that a big enough pool of
students who would participate is available. Neighborhood Watches have been used throughout
the country for decades as a tool to decrease crime in areas, as well as a way to spread safety
messages to all of those that live in the community.

Introduction
Oxford, Ohio experienced an increase in crime over the past year. In response, the Oxford
Watch program is being formed. The Neighborhood Watch counts on citizens to organize
themselves and work with law enforcement to keep a trained eye and ear on their communities,
while demonstrating their presence at all times of day and night. (Neighborhood Watch)
Neighborhood watches have been proven to be effective over the years, with the FBI recently
reporting that communities that have a program are 43% less likely to have crime committed in
their area. (ADT Protect Your Home 2016) With that being said as an organization, Oxford
Watch is optimistic that The Oxford Watch group will have a similar impact within the Oxford
community.

The addition of an Oxford Watch program will serve the entire community by reducing
overall crime and keeping the streets safe. The Oxford Watch aims to focus efforts around offcampus housing, an area which is not as heavily patrolled by the Oxford police force, as Miami
University Police primarily monitor on-campus residences. With the recent uptick in crime
within the Oxford community and the amount of students rattled by the events, having students
being more involved will help police protect the community of Oxford in which the students call
home.
A secondary goal of the Oxford watch program is to spread safety techniques that will
help individuals reduce the risk of crime themselves. Since neither the Oxford Watch nor the
Oxford Police department can be everywhere at once, training people on what they can do to
make themselves the safest is just another way that the Oxford Watch would be a valuable tool
for the community as a whole.
With burglary, theft, and property crime contributing to the greatest problems in Oxford,
our group believes that the Watch program could see those numbers going down significantly. By
working with the police and having patrols the recognition and response time for the crimes
would be decreased as well as the frequency. This would not only make a greater piece of mind
for the students who live off campus but also for the families of those students.

Plan
In order to best serve the community, Oxford Watch will first file for a 501(c)3 to make
ourselves tax exempt and be eligible for non-profit status. Oxford Watch will next market to
students to gather a force of volunteers who would be interested in participating in our
neighborhood watch program, as well as selling Oxford Watch wristbands for $2.50 to help raise
funds. Volunteers will need to be able to commit their schedules to being able to work one shift
per week and there will be 2 volunteers working each shift. Oxford watch wants to be able to
properly train their volunteers and will host two separate training sessions with the Oxford police
department with each lasting for 2 hours. Having training with the Oxford police department will
ensure that our volunteers will be trained by the best and will have adequate enough knowledge
to deal with any problems that may arise.

Oxford Watch will have tables in Armstrong during the afternoon at the beginning of the
second semester to help promote Oxford Watch and encourage students to sign up to be
volunteers and complete our training. The group would make sure that students know when they
sign up that they have to work at least one two hour shift a week and our goal is get a minimum
of 40 students to sign up to be a part of the Oxford Watch group. With this the organization
figures that it will be easier to rotate students for shifts so they will not have to work so much as
well as allowing us to have about 10-15 volunteers who would be on our sub list if someone is
unable to make their shift.

Oxford Watch has evaluated what would be peak times for students to be walking
around at night either alone or in groups in the off campus neighborhoods. Oxford Watch has

identified that Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights seem to be where the highest
amounts of traffic and many students are walking around late at night coming back from
Uptown. Knowing that the bars are open until 2:00am, Oxford Watch reasoned that the highest
amount of students would be walking around the Oxford neighborhoods between the hours of
9pm and 1am. Within this time range shifts for our volunteers will be divided up into two shifts
with 2 volunteers working each shift and the times being 9-11pm and 11pm-1am. Oxford Watch
will give the volunteers t-shirts to wear during their shifts and also flash lights to patrol with.

Benefits
The Oxford Neighborhood Watch program would serve multiple benefits to the
community of Oxford. The biggest ways it will benefit the community is through making the
streets more safe because of a decreased rate of crime. With an increased crime rate over the past
year, this program is important to keep crime under control. With the streets being patrolled by
students, the rate of crime should decrease. The Oxford Watch will mainly keep an eye on the
off-campus housing which is not as carefully patrolled by the Miami University and Oxford
Police forces. This brings another benefit to the community which is helping the police forces
monitor the areas better and get potential information needed to solve crimes if they happen.

While the Oxford Watch will directly help reduce the crime rate in the Oxford
community, it will also help bring the student community together through the volunteer
program. This will bring everyone together to be more aware of the surrounding areas and will
encourage everyone to work together to promote safety. At the same time, it will encourage
activity in the community benefitting all of the people who live in Oxford.

Budget
The budget shown in the table below identifies items that are key to the success of
Oxford Watch. The shirts act as a uniform for members to wear while on duty. The red color
makes those on patrol easy to identify and doubles as a promotional tool. The G1000 Portable
Zoomable Tactical LED Flashlight - 1000 Lumens is a high quality flashlight that will ensure
that watch members can easily spot crime from a safe distance; this item is essential to watch
members safety. The flashlights will be passed off during the shift change. The printed
wristbands will be sold to offset some of the aforementioned costs and act as a promotional tool.

Item

Unit Price

Quantity

Total

Source

T-shirts

$7.96

30

$258.90

https://www.c
ustomink.com
/designs/oxfor
dwatc/dqf0-

00au0end/share?
pc=EMAIL40778&utm_c
ampaign=shar
ed
%20design&u
tm_source=sh
are
%20link&utm
_medium=sha
red
%20design&u
tm_content=sh
ared
%20desktop
G1000
Portable
Zoomable
Tactical LED
Flashlight 1000 Lumens

$16.99 (Buy
1, Get 1 Free)

$67.96

http://www.yo
urstoreonline.
net/2_g1000_
portable_zoo
mable_tactical
_led_flashligh
t_1000_lumen
s/id4036705/p
roduct.html?
scomp=google
shopping&gcli
d=ck7sy6iwqd
acfymcaqodz9
cnhq

Printed
Wristbands

$0.36

100

$36.00

https://24hour
wristbands.co
m/shop/custo
m-siliconewristbands/pri
ntedwristbands

Schedule

Tuesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

9-11pm

9-11pm

9-11pm

9-11pm

11-1am

11-1am

11-1am

11-1am

When figuring out when most incidents happen on campus throughout the week, we
looked at when students would be walking in groups or alone late at night. The organization tried
to identify what times students would most likely to be going out and at what times people
normally go out or come home from Uptown. Oxford Watch established that Tuesday, Thursday,
Friday, and Saturday nights seem to be the busiest and also when incidents occur, as well as
deciding to break up the nights into two separate shifts. The organization will have two
volunteers working each shift and the shifts will be 9pm-11pm and 11pm-1am, however if
Oxford Watch realize there is more of a need for it than we previously thought once we begin
having volunteers monitor the neighborhood the organization may decide to add another
volunteer onto each shift. While there are also a large amount of break-ins that occur while
students are home for long breaks such as Thanksgiving, J-term, and Easter times like these
would be harder to get students to volunteer for as many people go home. However over J-term
once classes begin, Oxford Watch could also establish students who are already apart of the
Oxford Watch program and have them sign up for shifts to patrol off-campus housing.

Works Cited
Neighborhood Watch. (n.d.). Retrieved October 30, 2016, from v
http://www.ncpc.org/topics/home-and-neighborhood-safety/neighborhood-watch
"Neighborhood Watch Programs." S | ProtectYourHome.com. ADT, n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2016.

Appendices
Survey:
https://docs.google.com/a/miamioh.edu/forms/d/1Qjc5Ha6PFqxNIIJ2Vdz539fg8iaQ38DpoayFF
woaZTI/edit?usp=drive_web
Presentation:
https://docs.google.com/a/miamioh.edu/presentation/d/1V9bYtE0REFKfMqEU5jjVL0qdnl4JQt
M6gBHrQBhlSl4/edit?usp=sharing