Over the past decade Medford Oregon expanded their Neighborhood Watch
program and increased the number of neighborhood watch groups they have
in each section of the city. Using robust panel regression analysis we studied
what effect this program had on crime rates of the treated areas. Our data
included total number of crimes across 7 years from 2007 to 2013 and across
the 7 areas, or beats, recognized by the Medford Police Department, each of
which had a varying number of active neighborhood watches over our sample
period. Our goal was to use the number of neighborhood watch groups per
beat and several other proxy variables to try and estimate how much, if at all,
this program is affecting crime rate in Medford. We found that one additional
neighborhood watch decreases the crime rate per beat by about 3%, and
one additional neighborhood watch per square kilometer decreases the crime
rate by about 18%, though there is also evidence of diminishing effects as the
number of watches increases in a given area.
Read the final student report delivered to the local gov/community partner.
Sustainable City Year Program Contact Info
Megan Banks
Sustainable City Year Program Manager
mbanks@uoregon.edu
(541) 346-6395
University Faculty Contact
Joe Stone
Economics
jstone@uoregon.edu
Local Government / Community Contact
Tim George
Chief of Police