Dog Walker Watch is a crime awareness program spanning 3,000 cities in the United States. Prescott Valley is the latest community in Arizona to participate.
The idea behind Dog Walker Watch is for local law enforcement to train regular people, who are out walking their dogs, to also keep a watchful eye in their neighborhoods — and call 911 if need be.
Matt Peskin is the director of the National Association of Town Watch, which created the program. He says it’s been around 10 years, but its success in prevention is difficult to track.
“And it’s also difficult to track incidents when they occur. So in other words if something was to happen and somebody called something in it’s not like they identify themselves as a Dog Walker Watch, trainee, or anything like that," Peskin said.
He says it has helped local law enforcement revitalize community participation in crime prevention.
Volunteers go through about a one-hour training that can vary from community to community.
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Officers who received the training included some from Sonora’s new border operations division.
