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

DATE: THURSDAY, December 15, 1994                   TAG: 9412220013
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A22   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ZERO TOLERANCE

IN THE crime-fighting debate, both the punishment and prevention schools of thought have it part right, according to an economic model developed by a pair of Berkeley economists. Their theory holds lessons for Virginia as it prepares a massive expansion of its prison system.

George Akerlof and Janet Yellen, professors of economics at the University of California at Berkeley, believe that neighborhood action is the key to fighting crime.

Prevailing economic theory holds that criminals commit crimes when benefits exceed costs. Government can raise the cost by increasing the certainty of punishment: more cops + tougher courts + more prisons = less crime. The Akerlof-Yellen model accepts the cost/benefit assumption, The Wall Street Journal reports, but offers a simpler equation as the solution: less community tolerance = less crime.

The economists argue that communities inadvertently cooperate with criminals by ignoring crimes rather than calling the police. Only when crime becomes a major problem does the community cooperate with the police, and then crime goes down. To cut crime and keep it low, the community must lower the "cooperation/non-cooperation boundary."

Once crimes are being reported, there must be enough police and prisons to make punishment certain, a position that hard-liners can embrace. But neighborhood intolerance will prevent a lot of crime in the first place, an argument that community activists can heartily endorse. And if a community perceives law enforcement as somehow unfair or excessive, tolerance of crime may go up, cooperation with the criminal justice system may go down, and increased crime will follow, according to the researchers.

Punishment must be assured for predators, the theory suggests, but it takes the cooperation of the community being preyed upon to make punishment likely, and thus deter crime. Effective anti-crime measures would concentrate on winning and keeping the support of the community where crime occurs.

The success of Roanoke's community policing program, where cops and neighborhoods are lining up together, supports this view.

by CNB