About Crime Free

Keep Illegal Activity Off Rental Property

Message from the Executive Director Tim Zehring

Reducing crime on rental property presents a unique challenge for law enforcement. Most apartment renters don’t have the same commitment to their neighborhood as homeowners. Temporary renters often have no motivation to improve the safety of the community or work with law enforcement to improve it. At the first sign of criminal activity renters can just give notice, pack up, and leave.

Homeowners, on the other hand, have stronger ties to the community. The financial investment alone motivates most homeowners to have a greater concern about crime in their community. Homeowners cannot pack up and leave as easily as a renter when crime threatens their neighborhood. After all, rising crime rates affect their quality of life and lowers property values. When crime problems begin to appear, homeowners are more likely to seek assistance from the police and organize Block Watch activities to protect their neighborhood and families.

The police have historically fought a losing battle with the Block Watch approach to crime prevention on multi-family rental properties. In January of 1992, the Mesa Police Department faced that realization and decided to develop a new concept for crime prevention for rental housing communities.

The result was the Crime Free Multi-Housing Program. This multi-faceted new program had no precedent. For the first time a coalition of police, property managers, and residents of rental properties would work together to keep crime out of rental properties. A three-phase approach was developed to address all the crime opportunities on rental property.

The program was designed to include a certification process never before offered by any law enforcement agency. The incentives for program participation included training by law enforcement, certification, police issued signs, and advertising privileges. Rental property owners found immediate interest in this community based crime prevention program.

The development of the Crime Free Lease Addendum proved to be the backbone of the Crime Free Multi-Housing Program. This addendum to a typical lease agreement lists specific criminal acts that, if committed on the property, will result in the immediate termination of the resident’s lease.

The Crime Free Multi-Housing Program achieved almost instant success. The rental properties with the highest crime rates achieved immediate results with up to 90% reduction in police calls-for-service. Even the best properties commonly enjoyed 15% reductions in police calls. See success stories and testimonials.

The Crime Free Multi-Housing Program began to spread nationally after the first year, and internationally after the second year. The Crime Free Multi-Housing Program has been a success all across the United States and Canada.

I invite you to learn about the benefits of Crime Free Multi-Housing training and enter into a community partnership with law enforcement to keep crime off rental properties.

Tim Zehring
Executive Director
Send E-Mail to Tim

About the Crime Free Association

The International Crime Free Association is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to those whose mission is related to the goal and purpose of the Crime Free Programs.

Our goal is to help any persons involved with all types of rental properties, by expanding their knowledge of the Crime Free Programs through training, networking, information sharing, and assistance with on-going and newly formed Crime Free Programs.

This Association is also dedicated to helping those who do not have a local or state Crime Free Association, but they are interested in starting one. This Association may also be able to help you with grant writing (to help make your program even more successful).

The International Crime Free Association is mostly comprised of police officers and other employees of law enforcement or other government agencies who are employed on a full-time basis to coordinate any one or a combination of the various Crime Free Programs.

How Is The Association Structured?

The International Crime Free Association is structured very similar to a "City Manager" form of municipal government.

Regular, Agency and Non-Profit Members of the International Crime Free Association elect Regional Board Members. Regional Board Members can only be elected to the region in which they serve in a Crime Free Programs capacity.

The Regional Board Members have the responsibility to nominate the Executive Director to the Non-Profit Members of the Crime Free Association. As investors, the Non-Profit Members appoint the Executive Director.

The Executive Director, appointed Officers, and elected Regional Board Members to oversee the International Crime Free Association.

Executive Officers - 2007-2008

• Executive Director: Tim Zehring
• Assistant Director: Denny Dobbins
• Secretary: Dave Rowe
• Treasurer: John Start
• Officer At Large: John Nebl

Crime Free Conference Surrey, BC Canada (July 14-16, 2008)

Links to our Associate Members