Neighbourhood watch type program to begin in American Samoa

Transcript

The American Samoa Department of Public Safety is starting a community policing program to help prevent and solve crimes in the territory.

It's also looking to fill the gaps in areas where the traditional village system does not exist.  

Leilani Momoisea reports.

For every police officer in American Samoa, there are 1,440 citizens. The community policing program will have churches, villages and residents watching their neighborhoods and taking a pro active role in preventing crime. The programme will be rolled out at the part of the island where the most crimes are committed, Tuala-uta and Nu'uuli. Department officials led by Commissioner William Haleck, says the objective is to get the community involved in policing.

WILLIAM HALECK: My main goal is to get he public involved in a neighbourhood watch type program. If you live in a community with ten or fifteen houses and your neighbours have gone off to work, and if you see something that's out of the ordinary or a stranger that doesn't belong in your neighbourhood come in, please call the police.

Our correspondent in American Samoa, Monica Miller, says there aren't enough police officers to carry out the work of policing for the entire territory. She says the idea is that by involving community members, they will have a sense of ownership to help each other out, similar to the way traditional policing was done in the villages.

MONICA MILLER:Tuala-uta area is an area where it's not a traditional village, it's made up of individually owned land so you have a cross-section of people living in this area and they don't have the type of village structure or hierarchy that you would in the more traditional villages, and this is the area according to the police records where most of the crimes are committed.

James McGuire, who's lived in American Samoa for forty years, says generally in traditional villages the law is pretty well handled already by village mayors. He says for areas that don't operate this way, getting community leaders that young people respect will be key to the programme, and if it can generate volunteers to look after a community, it's a great idea.    

JAMES McGUIRE: You can't expect the government to do everything for everybody, people have to chip in and help take care of whatever problems there is and the community should get involved and support the police. If there's not enough police, the community should step up and stand behind them.

Another reason the police have chosen Tuala-uta to begin the community policing progamme is because it's an area with the biggest concentration of churches. It's expected with church support, the community will also get involved.