DETROIT — Detroit's nearly 2,500-strong police department is often unable to keep pace with the criminals who reside within its 142 square miles.

In 2012, Federal Bureau of Information data indicates 15,009 violent crimes, including 386 homicides, and 40,952 property crimes were reported in Motown.

The police department only cleared 18.6 percent of its violent crimes, 11.3 percent of its homicides and 4.2 percent of its property crimes in 2011, based on FBI data.

With resources likely to remain stagnant or decrease in the near-bankrupt city under emergency management, residents are increasingly taking it upon themselves to bolster the safety of their homes and neighborhoods.

Not including neighborhood watch organizations, there are 25 volunteer radio patrol groups across the city who coordinate with police to scout their neighborhoods looking for suspicious behavior and crime.

Retired Detroit Police Sgt. Shirley Joyner acts as liaison between these grassroots efforts and the Police Department.

Joyner says Detroit is one of the only cities in the nation in which these radio patrols are funded in part by the police department.

Volunteers are afforded CB radios, although Joyner says there is currently a shortage and personal cell phones are increasingly used, and reimbursed 50-cents per mile. Other necessities — T-shirts, caps, oscillating lights and door signs — may also be reimbursed with pre-approval.

On Monday night from 6 p.m. until after 8 p.m. more than 50 patrol volunteers and prospective volunteers crammed into a meeting room at the Grandmont Rosedale Development Corporation at 19800 Grand River in Detroit for a training session led by Detroit Police Inspector Brian Fountain, who showed the audience what they should be looking for to help police.

Among those in the crowd sat retired Detroit Police Officer Dan Wroblenski, 63, who left the department in 1992.

A lot of the same types of crimes he witnessed on his beat persist; but now they've crept into previously spared sections of the city, he says.

Wroblenski lives in one of the city's safer neighborhoods located in west Detroit, bordered by Dearborn to the south, Dearborn Heights to the west and Redford to the north. It's traditionally been home to city employees, police and firefighters, but the economic downturn has encroached bringing with it increasing blight and crime, said the former officer.

After starting the Far West Security Patrol No. 44 in his neighborhood a year ago, Wroblenski says its grown to 40 volunteers.

Some only perform one hour and a half shift per month, others twice per week.

"It depends on availability," he said. "Right now we only have one car out at a time. We'd like to get that up to two."

The biggest problems are vacant homes, daytime home invasions, scrappers stealing hot water heaters and copper piping and drug sales.

"We've got a lot of young men with nothing to do," Wroblenski said. "Abandoned houses are sometimes used by some of the addicts, they're used sometimes for gambling and they're used sometimes for prostitution.

"As a former police officer myself, I know how they prioritize the runs... they can't necessarily get there and we understand that so we try to do as much as we can with the eyes and the ears."

A report to creditors issued by Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr last month shows police response times are lagging and have increased nearly 95 percent, from an average of 25 minutes in 2012 to 42 minutes in 2013 for priority one calls.

Any patrol sanctioned by Detroit Police Community Services requires at least two volunteers to patrol together. They're asked not to chase or interact with potential criminals, but instead call 911, or for less serious situations, their precinct.

A group of at least 12 volunteers must commit to the patrols before they can be sanctioned by the city.

Anyone interested in starting their own radio patrol, or finding out if one exists in their area already, may call Detroit Police Community Services at 313-224-3945.

A map and list of active patrol organizations is not currently available online.