The City of Brockton has a population of approximately 100,000 and has a very active Crime Watch community with over 23,00 active members involved in Neighborhood Watch. 

This type of involvement has helped the City see a reduction in their crime rate of 32%.

In September 1996, Brockton Chief of Police Paul Studenski decided to initiate a Business Watch program in response to the concerns of the Downtown Business Association (which represents over 100 businesses in the downtown Brockton Area).

The businesses concerns were, employee safety, robbery and burglary prevention as well as intoxicated people in the areas of their businesses.

The majority of business involved are small family owned and run type businesses. These businesses are invested into the community as much and often more than the local residents even if they don't live in the community. They have a lot to loose if the crime in the area of their business is not controlled.

The purpose of the Business Watch Program is to assist the businesses in crime prevention and eventually bring them together with the Neighborhood Watch Programs.

The program was assigned to Officer Al Gazerro. Officer Gazerro was assigned to the 12:00 am to 8:00 am shift patrol division and started the program on a part time basis as additional duties to his regular shift.

The Business Watch program was well received by the downtown businesses and with in 6 months the program had expanded to over 600 businesses.

With the programs continuing growth it soon became to incumbent for an officer to do part time and Officer Gazerro was transferred to the day shift and given the assignment of Business Watch Coordinator on a full time basis.

The Business Watch program has a monthly newsletter simply titled "BusinessWatch". This newsletter is sent out to businesses though their various business organizations such as the Downtown Business Association. This newsletter contains information on burglary prevention, personal safety, and crime prevention tips.

In addition, the program offers to the businesses, among other things: burglary prevention surveys, employee training regarding robbery and larceny, bad check and credit card fraud, personal safety lectures, and statistical data to any business that requests it to show that most of the crime problems in these areas are perceived and not based on facts.

As well the Business Watch program has helped communications with other businesses from through out the city rather then just with in their own business organization.

Businesses are involved in quality of life issues now, where as before these type of issues where basically ignored or left for the local residents to deal with.

Many businesses have been involved in improvement of their area for many years prior through tree planting, assisting in construction of playgrounds as well as hosting parades for the city.

Through the program some of these same businesses have gotten together and now help each other out in their areas.