During my work on the Neighborhood Security Camera work I had an epiphany that I need to share:

Having an Alarm makes your Neighborhood Security Cameras 10 times more effective.
AND
Having a Neighborhood Security Camera Program makes your Alarm 10 more effective.

Let me explain:

Alarm alone: it will have a slight deterrent effect on Crime, and with a police response time in our area measured in hours, absolutely no effect on apprehension.

Neighborhood Cameras alone: if advertised well it will have a deterrence, but with a regular burglary on a property without alarm the time window of the crime will be too great to be useful to the police. “I left early this morning and when I came back tonight we had been burglarized, so it was one of the 200 cars that passed the Camera between 7:00 am and 6:00 pm. The local police will put this case at the bottom of the pile, with a solveability factor of next to nothing.

Neighborhood Cameras and Alarm:
Alarm was triggered at 1:43 pm, camera has 1 unknown car going into the neighborhood at 1:38 pm and leaving at 2:02 pm. we have the license plate. Police solveability is high, and it will go to the top of the pile, hopefully leading to recovery of personal property.

It really makes perfect sense once you think about it 😉