Examining the effectiveness of Neighborhood Watch program by measuring the perceptions of citizens who reside in a sample of Nashville Neighborhood Watch communities

This research explores the primary research question of will race, gender, education, age, and employment influence the perceptions of citizens living in Neighborhood Watch areas about the effectiveness of Neighborhood Watch programs? The study utilized ten different Neighborhood Watch Groups with a total of 159 citizens surveyed. The survey required each participant to complete the five different independent variables of race, gender, age, education and employment. The answers to Likert Scale questions served as the dependent variables. The survey further provided data utilizing a ranking scale to determine which of the eight crimes (UCR Part I), neighborhood watch groups would perceive to be the most effective. This research utilized the Spearman’s rho method because one or all of the variables were ordinal and not at the scale level. The results demonstrated race, gender, education and employment had no influence on the perceptions of citizens living in Neighborhood Watch areas about the effectiveness of Neighborhood Watch programs. The independent variable of age however; did influence the perceptions of citizens living in Neighborhood Watch areas about the effectiveness of Neighborhood Watch programs