DATE: Sunday, March 2, 1997                 TAG: 9702280002

SECTION: COMMENTARY              PAGE: J4   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial 

                                            LENGTH:   60 lines

ANTIDOTES TO CRIME THE RECENT FEDERAL GRANT FOR MORE POLICE AT NSU WILL EXPAND THE HISTORICALLY BLACK SCHOOL'S CAMPAING AGAINST DRUGS AND VIOLENCE.

The $633,876 that the U.S. Department of Justice awarded in mid-February to Norfolk State University will enable that historically black institution to expand its security force from 23 full-time officers to 33. The 10 new hires will strengthen NSU's several programs designed to combat crime and social disorder on campus and in surrounding neighborhoods.

Like Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia Commonwealth University and the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and many of other urban campuses, NSU has had its achievements obscured from time to time by drugs and violence within and beyond its gates.

Vandalism, muggings, rapes and homicides compelled NSU to devise and implement strategies to enhance safety and security in and around the campus. The $633,873 HUD grant will enable NSU to maintain:

On-campus community-police presence in residence halls, administration and classroom buildings and at selected sites and activities.

An off-campus neighborhood-watch program complemented by policing.

A close working relationship with the Norfolk Police Department.

An off-campus satellite community police station, which will serve as an official command post from which to dispatch police to where their services are needed.

In-school, after-school, weekend and summer activities for neighborhood youngsters, anti-drug programs, anti-crime meetings with community leaders, crime-prevention training for citizens, conflict-resolution training, gang-intervention activity and domestic-violence intervention.

Meanwhile, with the aid of previous HUD grants, NSU participates in building and renovating affordable housing in Brambleton and fostering revitalization of the area; conduct research on crime, illiteracy and poverty; provide education and other services for children and grownups; and repair and expand the Brambleton Community Outreach Center.

Norfolk police Chief Melvin C. High reports that crime has declined on and around NSU's campus. That mirrors the crime decline in Hampton Roads, Virginia, the nation.

Demographics is a partial explanation for the lower rates. A disproportionate share of crime is committed by young males. The percentage of the male population in the teens and 20s is not as great as it was in the years when crime rates soared.

More lawbreakers are behind bars than at any other period in U.S. history; the jail- and prison-inmate population exceeds a million, producing a 1:262 ratio of prisoners to the population at large.

More police are on the streets, and citizens are cooperating increasingly with law enforcement to rid their neighborhoods of drug traffickers and other menaces.

NSU's multifaceted, federally aided response to public-safety challenges on and off campus is among countless crime-countering efforts throughout America. A fed-up-with-crime populace has roused itself to rout disturbers of domestic tranquillity. Just as energy-saving measures adopted by America's millions in the 1970s markedly moderated U.S. consumption of oil and gas, grass-roots involvement in the struggle against crime is making a difference. Counting on police alone to restore law and order just didn't cut it. But a stronger NSU-based police presence will surely be helpful.

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