The Gastonia Community Watch Association meets quarterly and is the umbrella organization for the city's more than 30 active community watches. Community watches focus on quality of life issues in their neighborhoods and police handle all law enforcement issues. Community watches and local home owners associations share information with neighbors through monthly meetings, websites and social media.
Mission Statement: We, the members of the Gastonia Community Watch Association, recognize that Community Watch positively influences the quality of life of our city and our communities. Community Watch helps develop environments where crime cannot flourish through a concentrated, cooperative effort.
Purpose: To aid in the prevention of criminality, the reduction of criminal opportunity and to address all quality of life issues.
Purpose: To aid in the prevention of criminality, the reduction of criminal opportunity and to address all quality of life issues.
Goals:
- To provide all citizens within the city an awareness of their responsibility to help prevent criminality and acts of crime.
- To create and promote an awareness of the concepts of Community Watch in all our communities.
- To promote, within state and local government, an awareness of the part of its representatives - their responsibility to crime prevention and community policing.
Objectives:
- To create active, viable and dynamic cooperation and exchange of information among and between community watches, businesses, churches, schools, as well as the law enforcement community and other governmental agencies.
- To create a system of local communication of community watch, crime prevention and community policing information.
- To develop and disseminate community watch practices, technical and operational, and promote their use in the community on a local level.