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Neighborhood Watch group in 6000 block of W. Grace remains active in 16th Police District
by BRIAN NADIG
A Neighborhood Watch group in the Northwest Side’s Dunning neighborhood is believed to be the only active watch group in the 16th (Jefferson Park) Police District.
In 2022 Jacob Barker formally organized a watch group for the 6000 block of West Grace Street, where there are about 20 homes on its north side and Thorp Scholastic Academy on the south. “One day I just woke up and wanted to start (a watch),” said the 22-year-old Barker, a machine operator who added that he has interest in someday becoming a 911 operator or a crossing guard.
Barker said that at the time there was not a major crime issue on the block but there were general concerns about an uptick in robberies and thefts in the city and there appeared to be many benefits — beyond just crime prevention — to forming a group on the block.
The group meets every other month at Thorp and has a “phone tree” with phone numbers and e-mails for those on the block. There are about 15 active members who participate in group activities, said Barker, who serves as the block captain.
One of the block’s residents is a nurse who does well-being checks on seniors. The group gets a grant from the National Neighborhood Watch Institute.
16th District community policing officer Steve Howski, who has attended some of the meetings at Thorp, said that they are informative, with PowerPoint presentations and an incident log report review of 911 calls from the block.
National Neighborhood Watch is an affiliate of the National Sheriff’s Association, and the modern-day concept of the program came into prominence in the late 1960s in response to increasing burglary rates, according to the organization’s Web site. The organization was designed in part to keep neighbors informed about crime and to encourage the reporting of suspicious activity.
In recent years in Chicago, beat meetings and social media have in some ways replaced Neighborhood Watch and Block Clubs, which are similar to Neighborhood Watches. In the 16th District there have been block clubs, but few, if any, remain very active, according to district officials.
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