MPD strives to launch more neighborhood watch programs.

According to alarms.com, 13 percent of burglary reported cases are only solved due to the eyewitness or physical evidence. The Meridian Police Department is working to bring community members together and launch neighborhood watch programs, all across Meridian.

“We’re having burglaries off and on, occasionally throughout the day, every day, but we do have fortunate days where the police is notified, prior to the burglary suspect gaining entry.”

According to Lieutenant Jack of the Meridian Police Department, MPD has an average time to respond and have raised more efforts to make it even sooner.

“The typical response time for our agency, now that we have more units out on the streets, would be roughly three to four minutes. We do have a occasional calls, we have to prioritize, all calls are responded to, but for the most, our response time, our goal is 3 to 4 minutes.”

Lieutenant Jack says, having more units on patrol, helps increase response times and possibly catch a crime in the act.

"We’ve had incidents where officers are in the area when we get a call. So, anytime that we have calls from the public, any call, we do respond and we try to respond as quickly as we can."

Lieutenant Jack is hoping to gain enough support from the community for the neighborhood watch patrol to be successful.

“Neighborhood watch is important, it benefits the community by building stronger neighborhoods, stronger relationships with your neighbors, a neighborhood watch group actually puts the neighbor back into a community."