Community Services Division : Community Action Groups

Community Action Groups(CAGS)

The block captains of the District 1 Policing Committee celebrate their successes with District 1 Councilman Fred Richardson and city Chief of Staff Al Stokes. Street by street, the group has cleaned up its neighborhoods and helped the police chase away crime.

If you have the ambition to change your neighborhood, we have the resources to help you make it happen! We do it through our Community Action Groups (CAGs), which bring together local citizens with police sergeants trained in neighborhood problem-solving.

We’re talking about real problems and real results. A measure of our success is our rapidly expanding membership – more than 75 CAGs are actively engaged in problem-solving with the Police Department.


Major Prentiss Lawson talks to a citizen at a Community Action Group meeting.
Our most recent innovation was the introduction last year of computerized crime mapping available through the Police Department for any of our neighborhood groups. The computerized mapping delivers pinpoint accuracy to the task of locating and identifying incidents of crime within any defined geographical area.

Using Global Positioning System technology, the Mobile Police Department can provide compelling visual reports on neighborhood crime trends and develop more appropriate intervention strategies.

Crime mapping is one of many tools available to our neighborhood CAGs, as part of what we call the Enhanced Neighborhood Policing Program (ENP). The program uses the department’s broad grassroots presence to transform the community, neighborhood by neighborhood.

It's a win-win partnership. We bring in resources from the City of Mobile and other partners to solve neighborhood problems that can lead to crime and disorder. Those partners will include city Zoning, Traffic, Engineering and Trash Abatement – just to name a few. Neighborhood issues run the gamut from broad, quality-of-life matters such as trash and overgrown lots to derelict housing, noise and lighting.

Community Action Groups assembled for an update on hurricane cleanup efforts after the devastation of Hurricane Ivan. More than 100 members of the District 1 Policing Committee scatter throughout the neighborhoods during a morning cleanup. Zoning code violations are investigated and reported as well.

Our program has drawn national recognition. In 2001, the Mobile ENP program was named first runner up in the National Crime Prevention Council’s 2001 Award of Excellence. The award recognized the department’s collaboration with the City of Mobile’s Trash Abatement and Keep Mobile Beautiful Programs to target the blight that leads to crime.

If you would like more information on the program, or would like to start up a CAG in your neighborhood, please contact us at mobilepd@ci.mobile.al.us, or call 251-208-1924.