THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, October 5, 1996 TAG: 9610050197
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A11 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ANGELITA PLEMMER AND TONI WHITT, STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH LENGTH: 55 lines
To stem the city's crime problem, police are targeting not only violent crimes but also minor infractions that affect the quality of citizens' lives.
Officers assigned to specific neighborhoods now focus on loitering, littering and drinking in public. They also look for code violations such as abandoned cars, rotting roofs, overgrown lawns, faulty fences, peeling paint on houses and trash strewn across yards or illegally dumped.
Although these crimes are misdemeanors, they affect civic pride, neighborhood appearance, property values and safety. They can also be fertile ground for criminal activity.
``If you pay attention to the little things, then the big things fall in line behind it,'' Police Chief Dennis Mook said. ``We're trying to make the environment not conducive to criminal activity.''
The policy - called ``zero tolerance'' - began in January. It does not always mean making an arrest. City and state agencies are called in to work with police and residents to address neighborhood issues.
In the Bide-a-Wee Manor section, officials from various departments responded to residents' concerns about poor lighting, the need for ditch cleaning and road repairs, and a traffic pattern that created a problem with speeders.
``A clean neighborhood makes a safe neighborhood,'' said Charles Proffit, a Bide-a-Wee Manor resident for 31 years who is active in the civic league. ``You have to instill pride in people, wanting them to have a better neighborhood.''
Now, the city Parks and Recreation Department pays the civic league to keep the entrance to the neighborhood clean, Proffit said.
``I've been living here for 30 years and I don't know of any other place I'd move outside of Portsmouth,'' Proffit said.
The zero-tolerance approach has some drawbacks.
``Some (residents) think we're just picking on them or harassing them, but that's not the case,'' said Police Officer D.K. Butler, who works in Ida Barbour.
``If zero tolerance is used all the time by every officer on every occasion, the bottom line is you're going to get some good people who happen to make a mistake . . . so officers have to use their discretion.''
The program also has created a backlash for police, sometimes in the form of retaliation against the officers involved.
In the 1100 block of County St., for example, police have received complaints from residents about groups of young men loitering and possibly dealing drugs. On two occasions, Mook said, police officers have been attacked there.
Police said they have no record of how often these attacks against police occur, but such instances are not common. Meanwhile, police say, the zero-tolerance policy is sending a message.
``We're not going away,'' Mook said. ``We can see the light at the end of the tunnel.''
KEYWORDS: PORTSMOUTH POLICE CRIME CRIME REDUCTION by CNB