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Flintshire Stays Safe Under OWL’s Wing
Flintshire Neighbourhood Watch Association (FNWA) have been piloting an interactive system called Online Watch Link (OWL) for a year to manage Neighbourhood Watch and to send crime alerts out to its members.
The success of their adoption of OWL was revealed by the latest crime figures showing Flintshire was the only district to experience a fall in crime despite a 9.4% increase in crime across the rest of North Wales The other 5 districts were not part of the 12 month pilot project to evaluate OWL. Crime in those districts increased by as much as 18.6% compared to last year. Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom has now authorised funding for a further 12 months use of OWL which will now include PCs and PCSOs being trained on using it.
Denise Edwards, CEO of FNWA based at Mold Police Station said, “OWL provides interactive management and communication systems for street coordinators and members of watch schemes. It provides them with regular, localised messages from Police, Trading Standards, Fire Service and others which inform them of crimes and scams in their areas. It is an effective system in alerting people about crime and is much needed especially in the current economic climate.”
Messages, including crime alerts and timely crime prevention advice, are sent out to Neighbourhood Watch members by Jackie Lee who receives the latest information from partnership organisations. Jackie said, “OWL is amazing. It sends messages out to people in an instant. People can receive messages by telephone, fax, e mail, mobile phone or letter so people who do not have access to the internet do not miss out on OWL. It’s a highly effective and efficient way to get important information out into the County. Our coordinators and members tell us that they feel that Flintshire is a safer County with OWL in it. It’s nice to see that the crime figures now reflect that.”
A new study commissioned by Hertfordshire Chief Constable Frank Whiteley looked at 443 documents including 280 research papers and concluded that UK Neighbourhood Watch schemes were effective in reducing crime in 79% of cases when compared with similar areas where no scheme exists.
OWL recently won a Government national award for innovation after its successful deployment across Hertfordshire where it was developed by Direct Path Solutions. It has also been deployed across all 9 districts in Staffordshire. Both counties experienced a 5% drop in crime this quarter compared to the same period last year.
