ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, October 13, 1996 TAG: 9610140019
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO MGR (2) POLITICS
SOURCE: LAURA LaFAY AND LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITERS
VIRGINIANS WORRY THAT crime is going up, yet statistics show otherwise. So why are voters so concerned, and what would candidates do to address those fears?
It may be all over the news, the subject of every other television show, the obsession of the public and the mantra of politicians - but crime isn't doing what you think it's doing.
Crime is decreasing.
In Virginia, murders, rapes and robberies have dropped 12 percent since 1994, state police statistics show.
Violent crimes across the country fell by more than 9 percent last year, according to statistics compiled by the Justice Department. And FBI reports show a steady decline in all reported crime since 1991.
Local statistics tell the same story. For example, reports of serious crime - including murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault and felony property crimes - were down 8 percent in Roanoke last year, compared to 1994.
Roanoke County, the only Roanoke Valley locality to see an increase, had 8 percent more serious crimes in 1995 than in 1994. But only 44 of the 434 serious crimes reported by state police there were violent offenses.
Yet crime was one of three issues that topped a list of major concerns in a poll of 672 state residents conducted this summer for The Roanoke Times.
Crime is getting worse, Virginians told the pollsters. It is spreading to rural and suburban areas where it has previously been rare. People are afraid for themselves and afraid for their families.
"I'm extremely concerned about the escalating violence, especially among young people," Katie Zawacki, a substance abuse prevention specialist in Roanoke County, said during one of several round-table discussions the newspaper held with voters.
"I have some grandchildren, and I worry if they're going to be able to get a high school education or be shot by kids that carry guns to school," said Wendell Sanders, a military retiree from Vinton.
Such fear, say criminologists and political scientists, is aggravated by news accounts so graphic and pervasive that the details of a child kidnapping in California can scare parents in Virginia into keeping their children indoors.
"There is a lot of myth and misperception about what people's risk is," said John Keyser, assistant professor of public affairs at Roanoke College. "When you have a big story about a serial killer or a drive-by shooting, people are just terrified that this is going to happen to them."
Although some might argue that the media are simply reflecting reality, "that's not true," said Richard Moran, a criminologist at Mt. Holyoke College in Massachusetts.
"Because when you reflect something, you make it larger. Before intense light bulbs were invented, surgeons used to operate by candlelight. But they would also put mirrors next to the candles. So not only did they have the candlelight, they had the reflection of the candlelight.
"In the same way, the media is reflecting and enhancing and encouraging a market for crime. Once you reflect something, you have two images."
This distortion is intensified when seekers of public office exploit it for political gain, experts say.
As politicians see crime mentioned again and again in public opinion polls, "they have learned that playing on people's fears is a ticket for more votes in the next election," said Beth Carter, national coordinator of the Campaign for an Effective Crime Policy.
In 1988, when the disheveled image of Willie Horton - a Massachusetts murderer who committed a second crime while on a furlough program approved by then-Gov. Michael Dukakis - was broadcast across the country, it resonated with millions of Americans and helped kill Dukakis' bid for the presidency.
Old Dominion University criminologist Lucian X. Lombardo said Americans saw their worst fears realized and their deepest biases confirmed in Willie Horton.
"He was the symbolic assailant," Lombardo said. "The predatory young black male, and Dukakis was responsible because he let this guy out."
Times have changed since Willie Horton. Led by President Clinton, the Democrats have so successfully co-opted the crime issue that it has been difficult for GOP presidential candidate Bob Dole to capitalize on it.
Although Dole has accused Clinton of appointing "liberal judges" to the federal bench and blamed Clinton for a reported increase in teen drug use, a Washington Post poll conducted in September indicated that voters see both candidates as equally capable of dealing with the drug problem. Forty-six percent of those polled said Clinton could deal more effectively with crime than Dole.
"Crime used to be an issue on which Republicans dominated Democrats," said Clinton's 1992 campaign manager, David Wilhelm, currently a fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.
"Willie Horton was in 1988. Now, only eight years later, I actually believe the Democrats have the political edge."
Maybe not the edge, Lombardo said. But they have definitely managed to close the gap.
"The Democrats have defused the issue by co-opting the tough-on-crime stance," he said. "So now the Republicans have nowhere to go."
Regardless of party affiliation, political solutions to crime can lose some of their campaign-trail luster when applied to real-life scenarios.
For example, supporting the "three strikes, you're out" law was a political no-brainer. The measure, which allows or requires life imprisonment or long sentences for three-time violent felons, was hailed as a crime-fighting tool in Congress in 1994, and has since been adopted in varying forms by 22 states.
But the laws have been used rarely by the federal government and most of the states that enacted them, according to a national survey by the Campaign for an Effective Crime Policy. Why? Apparently there are just not as many three-time "violent predators" as the political rhetoric implied.
"I think historically, politicians have exploited the issue and have lied to the American public about crime in general, and have misled people about what they can do about it," Roanoke College's Keyser said.
In any given city, say experts, crime is concentrated in a few areas. And although the majority of the population might live elsewhere, that majority becomes fearful because of the proximity of the problem and the possibility of random spillover. Hence the disproportionate fear experienced by those who live in relatively crime-free areas.
"Fear of crime is actually inversely related to victimization," Moran said.
"The less familiarity you have with something, the more afraid you are of it. So you have elderly white women living in the suburbs who are most afraid of crime and the least likely to be victimized, while young males in urban areas are most likely to be victimized, but they're the least afraid."
And they are the least likely to vote, as well.
"The elected officials and the ones running for office don't expect those people to be voting anyway, so I don't think they feel like they have to appeal to those communities very much," Carter said.
This is important, political scientists say, because it is typically the voter's perception rather than the reality of a situation that shapes politics and policy. Politicians focus on the issues voters care about. And voters care about crime.
"When crime falls off the radar screen of the voters, it will fall off the radar screen of the politicians," said Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia. "Politicians are very responsive to people's concerns. Maybe too much so. And if high crime is what people perceive, that's what will drive policy."
No one knows this better than Gov. George Allen, whose 1993 campaign was based largely on getting tough on crime. After his election, Allen surrounded himself with crime victims who traveled the state with him, telling their stories. Within a year, and with the almost-complete cooperation of the General Assembly, he abolished parole.
Since Allen took office in 1994, Virginia's inmate population has jumped 31 percent - from roughly 22,000 prisoners to 28,743. The state has opened two new prisons and seven new work camps. Six more prisons are under construction. All six are expected to be open by October 1998.
As soon as parole was abolished for adults, Allen turned his attention to the "young thugs" that he said were driving an alarming increase in juvenile crime. Again, lawmakers responded by overhauling the state's juvenile justice system, subjecting more young offenders to adult trials.
But juveniles still drive the debate over crime.
With the coming of the "echo boom" - children of the baby boomers who are entering their most crime-prone years - some criminologists have predicted a big increase in crime.
But so far, it hasn't happened. Preliminary FBI data for 1995 showed that the violent crime rate for juveniles dropped 2.9 percent nationally. And in Virginia, the number of juveniles charged with murder has been on a steady decline - 77 in 1993, 65 in 1994 and 48 in 1995.
Crime has not been much of an issue in this year's U.S. Senate race. The reason, Sabato said, is that both Sen. John Warner and Democratic challenger Mark Warner are equally tough on crime. "For it to be an issue, there has to be a difference," he said.
But there may be another reason.
More and more, voters say, they are beginning to realize that crime is not a one-dimensional problem with a one-dimensional solution. Punishment can accomplish only so much.
"When you speak in generalities, most people are of the law-and-order, let's-fry-'em mentality," Keyser said.
"But when you pin them down and start to educate them about how much it costs for one jail cell, or how much it costs to execute someone, that's when they start to become more amenable to the alternatives."
Mark Warner has noticed the same thing.
"People I've talked to feel like there is no easy answer," he said. "That yes, if you do the crime, you should do the time, but also that we need to focus on preventing it in the first place. And that takes education and hope. Harsh sanctions aren't going to make much of a difference to someone who doesn't expect to live past 25."
For the crime issue, at least, the season of the political sound bite may be coming to an end.
Coming this week: A look at three Western Virginians who have first-hand experience with crime, and how the candidates would address their concerns.
LENGTH: Long : 179 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshots) Katie Zawacki, Wendell Sanders, Sam Kyle,by CNBBertha Rosson. color. Graphics: Charts by staff. 1. Serious crime
decline. 2. Crime distribution. color.