By simply spitting a few digits of radio jargon from his thickly bearded mouth into a two-way radio, Andy Dlinn was ready to help protect his neighborhood the best way he knows how -- with his presence.

	Lake Fong, Post-Gazette Andy Dlinn, founder of Squirrel Hill Citizens Patrol, is on patrol on Phillips Avenue. Click photo for larger image.

"Communications, this is Squirrel Hill one, I'm 10-8," he called into the dispatch center, signaling the start of another shift on the Squirrel Hill Citizens Patrol.

His car rolled slowly out of its parking space, down the street. At various checkpoints throughout the neighborhood, Dlinn called his location into the radio before continuing on his way.

But really, the next two hours on this Saturday before Memorial Day were similar to the way the night started: Dlinn, the watch group's founder, cruised through his neighborhood and made calls into the emergency dispatch center to report, well, nothing at all.

There wasn't much crime for the citizens patrol to report on that night in Squirrel Hill.

Nor is there on many nights these days during the group's two- to four-hour night shifts five days per week.

Volunteers have become accustomed to reporting fewer disturbances while traversing the expanse of the neighborhood. The group patrols every block between Schenley and Frick parks to the east and west, with Fifth Avenue and Browns Hill Road forming the northern and southern boundaries. Since the watch group started, crimes such as burglary, robbery and auto theft in Zone 4, which encompasses Squirrel Hill and several other neighborhoods, have dropped more than 40 percent, according to Pittsburgh police crime prevention analyst Ashley Thompson.

At once, this became a victory and a problem for Dlinn's group. Now the biggest challenge for the Squirrel Hill Citizens Patrol, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this month, is no longer crime; it's recruitment.

"Years ago, there was a lot more action," Dlinn said. "The quieter it gets, the harder it is to get people out here."

It's a challenge any neighborhood crime prevention group would face. There's no tougher time to get people interested in a crime watch than when crime is decreasing. Dlinn's group has about 40 active members, down from a more robust 80 in the mid- to late 1990s.

"Too often, when the crime goes away, the neighborhood watch goes away," said Thompson, who has helped organize numerous block watches in his 11-year career as a Pittsburgh police officer.

On the other hand, neighborhoods with higher crime rates often have trouble starting and sustaining patrols. People there might face both the chance of angering the wrong people and the physical risk of patrolling the streets.

"They tend to only work in stable, settled communities where most of the citizens care deeply about quality of life," said Robert McCrie, professor and crime researcher at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. "They don't tend to exist as often in higher crime areas with more transient residents."

The longevity of Dlinn's organization, for example, appears to be unique within Pittsburgh. Calls to each of the five Pittsburgh police zones located one other watch group as organized and extensive: Lawrenceville's United Public Safety Group, which has had mobile neighborhood patrol among other crime prevention groups since 2003.

Though other such groups existed, they have faded away, much like the nemesis car burglar or nuisance bar that triggered them to form in the first place. That was the case in nearby Point Breeze, Dlinn said.

In 1998, Just Jake's Bar on Penn Avenue had that neighborhood in an uproar, and dozens clamored to volunteer for watch duty. So Squirrel Hill annexed Point Breeze as part of its coverage area. They kept a close eye on Jake's, and it eventually closed. But the bulk of the Point Breeze watch group, with six active members remaining, appears to have gone the way of the bothersome tavern.

Dlinn doesn't want the same thing to happen to his watch, especially because starting a group as extensive as his is so difficult in the first place. The money has to come from somewhere when you're using two-way radios and your own dispatch center, as Squirrel Hill does, or paying several staff members, as does Lawrenceville. But government grants for these groups can be elusive. After an initial grant 10 years ago of $10,000 from the office of then-state Rep. Ivan Itkin, D-Squirrel Hill, Dlinn is hoping another grant, from the office of state Sen. Jay Costa Jr., D-Forest Hills, comes through soon so his organization can upgrade equipment.

Lawrenceville United Executive Director Tony Ceoffe said his group was on the verge of receiving state aid after searching for a grant since the watch started in 2003.

Ultimately, most tend to gauge a watch group's established place in the community by how effectively it appears to fight crime. But proving efficacy is another challenge for these groups

"It's not the kind of activity that can provide statistics for what they're doing," said McCrie, the John Jay College professor. "Making a connection between them and the relative crime in the area is difficult for researchers."

This is true of Dlinn's group. It does not make arrests, or remain on the scene after calling in an incident.

And it would be tough to fight crime in any literal sense, because volunteers are instructed to stay in their vehicles at all times. The group is mostly concerned with deterring potential criminals from delinquent behavior.

But how many are deterred on any given night is impossible to determine.

Cmdr. Paul Donaldson, of the Hill District station, believes that the paramount value of watch groups is the information they can provide simply because they are members of the neighborhood. He said tips from Lawrenceville's block watches have led police to clear 10 drug houses in the area since August.

"I've always said the best friend of a police officer is a nosy neighbor," Donaldson said. "A neighborhood watch can see things that a police car driving by on patrol can't see."

No matter how keen its vision, it would still be difficult to say the citizens patrol is the sole reason for crime receding in a place such as Squirrel Hill in the past 10 years. The entire city's crime rate has been dropping, after all.

But in an area where crime seems to be losing ground, it's only natural for the neighborhood watch to move to the bottom of the community checklist.

"In a way, I'd love to see some apathy in Lawrenceville," Ceoffe said with a laugh. "That would mean people feel safe. They're at that point in Squirrel Hill."

It was especially evident that Saturday before Memorial Day. Blurting a few more number sequences into the radio, Dlinn called the end of the watch shift an hour and a half early.

"Sorry we couldn't see any action tonight," he said. "It was slow, really slow tonight, but that's the way we like it.

"That means we're doing our job."