Is National Night Out Effective?

Driving along MD Rt. 193 from College Park to Greenbelt, there is a billboard on the left side of the road advertising season tickets for the upcoming University of Maryland football season.

It’s not like the season is going to “sneak up” on football fans — especially if their interest in Terps football has prompted them to become season ticket holders.

Whenever I pass it, I wonder, just how effective is this ad?

I wonder the same thing about National Night Out (NNO), the national event held each year on Aug. 2 that, according to organizers, is designed to: “heighten crime and drug prevention awareness; generate support for, and participation in, local anticrime programs; strengthen neighborhood spirit and police-community partnerships; and send a message to criminals letting them know that neighborhoods are organized and fighting back.”

Don’t get me wrong: I think NNO is a great event. Anything that gets people out of homes and rubbing elbows with others in the community is worthwhile (this is precisely why I’m involved in organizing ). Yet, beyond the intangible benefits of “strengthening neighborhood [and community] spirit,” I wonder about the night’s effectiveness in terms of reducing crime.

According to this Patch , Major Hector Velez of the Prince George’s County Police Department said, “National Night Out is really an event with two purposes. It’s about getting people together who don’t interact on a daily basis and about taking back the street.”

But is it doing that? My family and I went to . While the kids had a good time, I don’t think we talked to anyone we didn’t already know, save for the volunteer firefighter from the College Park Fire Station who showed us the ladder truck (and I finally did get to meet Shannon Hoffman in person).

Further, I didn’t hear anyone talk about crime or strategies for “taking back the streets.” (It’s worth pointing out that I did hear such talk at last year’s event at Duvall Field.)

I checked out District 1 police statistics over the past few years to see if there’s been any reduction in crimes reported. (I know: this is a less-than-scientific approach to determine the effectiveness of NNO, but I couldn’t think of any other ways to do it.) As it turns out, there has been a fall in crimes reported. Data from between January and July 2010 show an 8.7 percent decrease as compared to the same period in 2009. In fact, since 2007 the number of crimes reported went down every year.

Does this mean that the NNO activities of College Park and the surrounding communities have led to a decrease in crime, at least in District 1? Again, that’s tough to say.

However, I think it stands to reason that, as the links between community members and local law enforcement strengthen over years through NNO, more people will be looking out for one another and working to make their communities safer.

Smith is a resident of north College Park. He blogs (occasionally) at www.ncpinformant.com and you can follow him on Twitter @smithflap.