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

DATE: TUESDAY, November 8, 1994                   TAG: 9411080124
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Medium

BIG-CITY VIOLENT CRIME DOWN

The number of incidents of murder, robbery and assault has declined in almost all the nation's largest cities, most markedly in the West, according to a survey by the New York City Police Department.

Twenty of the 22 police departments that were surveyed said there were fewer felonies in the first six months of this year than there were in the same period last year. The cities showing the greatest declines in felonies were San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, El Paso and San Antonio, in descending order. San Francisco reported a 25.2 percent decrease in total felonies, with better than 20 percent decreases each in murder, rape, robbery, burglary, larceny theft and motor vehicle theft.

New York City ranked sixth in the survey, with a decrease of 9.7 percent in total felonies from the same six-month period last year. Murder in the city fell by 10.9 percent; robbery by 12 percent and auto theft by 14.5 percent.

Unlike most of the other cities, where the reported decreases followed years of rising crime rates, New York has recorded four straight years of modest declines.

The only reported increases in felonies were in Phoenix (11 percent) and Baltimore (3.2 percent), the survey said.

Mark Moore, a criminologist at Harvard University, said the survey was ``probably good news,'' but he noted that ``it doesn't capture the fear that is out there.''

Indeed, a single set of new statistics, no matter how encouraging, is unlikely to allay the fears of a country that saw crime rates soar after crack was introduced to the cities in the mid-1980s. Many experts say it will take years of declines in crime rates for this pervasive anxiety to recede.

While the survey's results were based on preliminary police data, and though as much as 50 percent of violent crimes go unreported, criminologists and police officials said the new numbers nevertheless suggested at least a short-term downward trend in crime.

But the experts differed widely on whether the apparent improvement in urban safety was related to improvements in the economy, the cold winter, demographic trends or changes in police tactics and law-enforcement policies.

by CNB