THE TIMES POLL : O.C. Residents See Increase in Crime but Praise Police

Orange County residents believe that crime has worsened in the past decade, but most still feel safe at home or strolling alone through their neighborhoods at night and give high marks to their local police departments, The Times Poll has found.

Specifically, Orange County residents said they believe officers exercise good judgment, do not push people around and are prompt in answering calls for service. The departments are mostly color-blind--treating members of ethnic minorities equally--and they are adequately staffed, survey respondents said.

One Orange County police chief said he was not surprised by the public’s sound support for local law enforcement, which produced a 78% approval rating in The Times Poll for local police and a 69% approval for the Sheriff’s Department.

“In the past 10 years, police departments in general have been strongly committed to their communities, listening to what their communities have to say,” Garden Grove Police Chief John Robertson said. “There was a time in the history of police work--no exception in Orange County--where (police) were isolated to themselves.”

I.A. Lewis, director of The Times Poll, said that Orange County’s affluence helps explain the generally positive attitudes about personal safety and law enforcement.

“This has a lot to do with income level. People who live in poor areas are victimized more by crime,” Lewis said. “Since the general income level in Orange County is higher, you might expect less victimization.”

The Times Poll was conducted among 1,901 residents of Los Angeles and Orange counties on Feb. 3 through 7. It has an accuracy range of plus or minus 3% overall, 4% among Orange County respondents.

Generally, Orange County residents feel safer and more crime-free than people in Los Angeles. The results also showed that Orange County residents have a better opinion of police than do people in Los Angeles.

Asked about the staffing of police departments, 57% of those surveyed in Orange County said present law-enforcement strength is “about right,” while 38% said more police are needed.

About 90% of those responding to the survey in Orange County said they are confident that their local officers will protect them from becoming victims of crimes. Most even believe that more officers could be deployed to high-crime areas and that law-abiding citizens would not be less protected.

Nearly all Orange County residents feel secure in their homes, with 93% of respondents reporting that they feel “somewhat safe” or “very safe.”

Two out of five Orange County residents said they feel “very safe” walking the streets of their neighborhoods and another two out of five said they feel “somewhat safe.” About 20% said they feel either somewhat or very unsafe.

Generally, there has been little appreciable change in the perceived safety of neighborhoods and homes in the past several years. Times polls dating from 1979 to the present have typically showed similar numbers.

Fifty-five percent of Orange County residents believe that crime is more serious now than a decade ago. Another 31% said it is about the same.

Two in every 10 Orange County residents surveyed said that they or members of their families were victims of crimes last year. Of those, most said the crime was auto theft or burglary.

“People don’t necessarily blame cops for crime,” Lewis said. “More often than not, they blame the courts for crime and the prisons for crime. . . . Police are by and large a personification of a guardian.”

Most people said that police treat blacks, Latinos and Asians the same way that they treat whites. But of those people who noted a difference, about a third said that Latinos are treated rougher than whites.

In polling both Orange and Los Angeles counties, the survey found that almost half of the blacks questioned said there was at least “a fair amount” of police brutality in the Southern California area, a rate more than twice that of Anglos. More than a third of the blacks questioned said they or a family member had been intimidated or harassed by law enforcement officers. In Orange County, the survey did not include ethnic breakdowns, Lewis said, because statistical samples of minority groups were not large enough.

About one out of 10 people surveyed in Orange County said they or a member of their family had been intimidated by police, detained or arrested during a police sweep through the neighborhood, held without being charged with a crime, or had suffered another form of police harassment.

Most Orange County residents believe there are few problems involving police brutality. About one in six respondents in the poll said they believe there is “a fair amount” of police abuse.

Nearly 80% of those Orange County residents polled said they think relations between the community and police departments have remained steady or improved over the past decade. Only 13% said they believe they have worsened.

About half of the Orange County people polled said they had some sort of contact during the last two years with police officers. Those contacts included people who were stopped by an officer and those reporting a crime or calling for assistance.

Garden Grove Chief Robertson said that police departments have recently tried to open themselves up, making their officers more visible and increasing contact with the public. He said his own department, for instance, has opened field offices and will soon be starting bicycle patrols.

“We just want to be more visible than a patrol car,” he said.

TIMES POLL

Views of Orange County residents as measured by The Times Poll. Compared to 10 years ago, what kind of a crime problem do you have in your neighborhood? More serious: 55% About the same: 31% Less serious: 7% Don’t know: 7% How do you rate your police department/sheriff’s department?

Police Sheriff’s Dept. Dept. Approve 78% 69% Disapprove 13% 12% Don’t know 9% 19%

How much police brutality is there in your neighborhood? None: 50% Hardly any: 6% Not much: 12% A fair amount: 16% A great deal: 3% Don’t know: 13% Has anyone in your family been intimidated by police officers? Yes: 9% No: 90% Don’t know: 1%

Times staff writer Cathleen Decker contributed to this article.