DATE: Monday, April 28, 1997                TAG: 9704260003

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B6   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial 

                                            LENGTH:   45 lines

HOW TO DEFEAT CRIME

Crime hasn't taken a holiday, as any television, radio or newspaper confirms repeatedly. But crime rates are down in the nation, in the states, in the cities.

This decline won't continue unless Americans make heroic efforts at the grass roots to guide onto constructive paths the swelling numbers of youngsters marching toward their teens.

The decline won't continue unless America's most-dangerous neighborhoods, where children are most at risk of becoming lawbreakers or unmarried teen mothers or both, are the focus of sustained, coordinated community effort to enhance public safety.

The key to safer and happier localities is community-based policing complemented by the mobilization of community agencies to help the disadvantaged enter the mainstream of American life.

Last year's drop in violent crime in Norfolk's public-housing neighborhoods is attributable in large, though unquantifiable, measure to the city's Police Assisted Community Enforcement (PACE) program. Police win residents' trust. The residents then help the police do their job of discouraging crime by keeping a close eye on things and collaring lawbreakers. Policing and employment of public and private agencies' resources to encourage residents' participation in improving their own neighborhoods are other essential ingredients in making communities safer.

Though not safe enough - yet. In Norfolk's nine public-housing villages, aggravated assaults were down by 1, from 104 to 103 - a less than 1 percent drop. Murders dropped to 4 from 5, a 20 percent improvement. But aggravated assaults frequently produce fatal injuries or wounds. Norfolk's public-housing residents won't be appreciably safer until aggravated assaults plummet.

That the number of rapes fell from 12 in 1995 to 8 in 1996 is gratifying. So, too, is the decrease in robberies from 82 in 1995 to 53 in 1996. Overall, violent crime in Norfolk's public-housing communities last year dropped 17 percent. The decrease citywide was 2.6 percent.

The poor from whose ranks come a disproportionate share of the lawbreakers who commit crimes that Americans fear most also supply a disproportionate share of victims. When those most likely to be victimized by criminals join with police to banish the predators from their midst, poor neighborhoods will become safer. Community-based policing is demonstrating that truth, again and again, from here to Hawaii.

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