
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, August 4, 1994                   TAG: 9408040050
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

UNSUNG SUCCESS IN CRIME CONTROL

BASED ON 1993 crime statistics from the FBI, Virginia Beach and Arlington were recently identified by Money magazine as two of the safest urban centers in America. Doubtless, their residents are proud of their metropolises, and their fellow Virginians here in the Star City wish them continued good fortune.

Doubtless they'd wish us the same - if they only knew.

Roanoke did not make the Money list, which ranked only those localities with populations of more than 100,000. Falling nearly 4,000 folks short of that urban-population threshold, Roanokers must rest content with ther own knowledge that their city this year seems to be doing an exceptionally fine job of controlling crime.

Knock on wood - but the incredible sanity of zero killings during 1994 was still holding as of this writing, noon on Wednesday.

Call that a fluke if you want. Even Roanoke's top law-enforcement officers attribute the continuing homicideless record in large part to extraordinary good luck. But seven months and three days without a single reported murder is not the only indication that the city is doing something right.

In addition to a murder-free (so far) 1994, the number of all serious crimes has dropped for two years in a row. From 1992 to 1993, larceny was down almost 18 percent. Burglary was down more than 8 percent. Reported rapes were down 30 percent. All told, counting other serious offenses, crime went down 12.5 percent.

Indeed, it's enough to suggest that more than good-luck flukery is at play. An improving economy has helped. So, we suspect, have several of the city's law-enforcement initiatives - not the least of which has been the COPE program, or Community Oriented Policing Effort, begun in 1991.

That program has teams of police officers who are not just pulling up in patrol cars to respond to reports of crime but who are on the streets, working side by side with residents to prevent crime in high-risk inner-city neighborhoods. It's impossible, of course, to quantify crimes that are never committed, or to credit the dropping crime rate completely to COPE or any other law-enforcement activity.

But many residents will attest that they feel safer here than they used to. Moreover, studies have concluded that residents now tend to express more trust and confidence in the police, and more willingness to help the police do their jobs.

On the crime front, Roanoke is no Camelot. But neither is it Sin City - and the trend now seems to be moving it farther from the Sin City model and closer to Camelot. That direction is right on the money - whether or not Money, the magazine, recognizes it.

by CNB