DATE: Tuesday, March 4, 1997                TAG: 9702190548

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B03  EDITION: FINAL 

                                            LENGTH:   56 lines

THIS PAGE WILL EXPLORE TRENDS, THEIR CAUSES

How often are crimes committed in Hampton Roads? What are the crimes? Who are the victims and the perpetrators?

Thanks to a growing body of data about crime, we can provide better answers to those questions than ever before.

The Virginian-Pilot's crime databases have shown us that burglaries in Hampton Roads are rising and that auto thefts are dropping, and we have reported those trends.

Databases have shown us that while violent crimes are declining overall, murder arrests of juveniles have risen sharply in recent years. We reported that, too.

We are mining these evolving sources of information for all manner of insights into crimes and criminals. How often do the elderly fall victim to crime, and what are those crimes? Where are the hot spots for drug sales in Hampton Roads? Is the number of HOV-lane violators rising or falling, and what are your chances of being caught if you're a scofflaw? Is the 911 emergency system working as intended, or is it being abused?

We will use this page to report on those trends and others - but also to tell the stories of people who are affected by them, how they are coping, how they are fighting back.

We hope these reports will help in some way to make sense of crimes that seem to occur randomly and chaotically. If patterns can be shown, it becomes clear that they are not so random, not so chaotic.

And it is easier to combat crimes if there are ways to anticipate where they will occur, and when, and to whom. Armed with such knowledge, police and citizens can more effectively thwart criminals.

This page will try to bring meaning to those seemingly random crimes against people and property. It will also include stories about people who have grown weary of acquiescing to the criminal threat - like the hundreds of people in Portsmouth who, two years running, have participated in citizens' ``crime summits.''

At least partly because of those efforts, the violent crime rate in Portsmouth fell last year for the first time since 1983, and the drop was precipitous: 29 percent.

The page also will provide information about the criminal-justice system. It will tell you how the courts work, what magistrates and bail bondsmen do, how likely you are to be selected for jury duty, how you can form a neighborhood crime watch.

We will tell you about unsolved crimes and give you an opportunity to provide information to police that can help bring about arrests.

We will answer questions you have about the criminal justice system.

We would like to hear from you. Tell us if our coverage is helpful, useful and meaningful. Tell us what we could do differently. And pass along stories about how you or your friends and neighbors have struck back at the crimes that continue to plague our communities. We would like to share them with others.

- Bill Burke, editor

Public Safety Team

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