Security Journal, 2009, 22, (143 – 155) © 2009 Palgrave Macmillan 0955–1662/09 www.palgrave-journals.com/sj/ A Review of the Effectiveness of Neighbourhood Watch Trevor Bennett a , Katy Holloway a and David P. Farrington b a Centre for Criminology, University of Glamorgan, Pontypridd CF37 1DL, U.K. E-mails: thbennet@glam.ac.uk, krhollow@glam.ac.uk b Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, Sidgwick Avenue CB3 9DT , U.K. E-mail: dpf1@cam.ac.uk The current paper presents the results of a systematic review of evaluations of neighbourhood watch. The review was conducted as part of the Campbell Collaboration Crime and Justice Group research on the effectiveness of criminal justice interventions. The main finding of the review was that about half of the schemes evaluated showed that neighbourhood watch was effective in reducing crime. However, just under half showed no evidence of success. An analysis of variations in outcome by features of the study, methods used and type of scheme showed some correlations with outcome. The paper concludes that future evaluation reports of neighbourhood watch should present more information on the features of the schemes and the method of analy- sis used to determine the source of variations in outcome, and to enable systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Security Journal (2009) 22, 143–155. doi:10.1057/palgrave.sj.8350076; published online 11 August 2008 Keywords: neighbourhood watch; effectiveness; crime reduction; systematic review; meta-analysis Introduction One of the earliest neighbourhood watch programmes in the U.K. was the Cheshire Home Watch programme implemented in Mollington in 1982 (Anderton, 1985). Since then the number of neighbourhood watch schemes in the U.K. has grown rapidly. The report of the 2000 British Crime Survey estimated that over a quarter (27 per cent) of all households (approximately six million households) in England and Wales were members of a neigh- bourhood watch scheme (Sims, 2001). This amounted to over 155,000 active schemes. One of the first schemes in the U.S. was the Seattle Community Crime Prevention Project launched in 1973 (Cirel et al., 1977). The report of The 2000 National Crime Prevention Survey (National Crime Prevention Council, 2001) in the United States estimated that in that year 41 per cent of the American population lived in communities covered by neighbourhood watch. Considering that there has been such a large investment in neighbourhood watch, it is reasonable to ask whether neighbourhood watch is effective in reducing crime. The results of previous reviews of the literature on the effectiveness of neighbourhood watch have been mixed. One of the earliest reviews by Titus (1984) summarised the results of nearly 40 community crime prevention programmes that included elements of neighbour- hood watch. Most were evaluated by police departments or were based on data from police departments. Nearly all found that neighbourhood watch areas had lower levels of crime in