The UW-Madison Greek community has started a new initiative to combat the growing problem of muggings near State Street in Madison.

Some of the Langdon Street fraternities and sororities are forming a neighborhood watch program.

Beginning this weekend, small groups of students will now patrol the street between 10 pm and 2 am.

Many of the downtown attacks this past spring and summer occurred in that area.

Often the attackers seemed to target drunk college kids walking home from the bars.

The program was devised with the help of the Madison police officers who patrol around Langdon Street.

Drew Willert of the Langdon St. Watch says, "Ideally what would happen is we'd have a couple groups of 4 or 5 students go out and just act as additional eyes and ears for the police."

The watch program will run until the end of the school year.