Valley Crime Rate Low, Fear High, Poll Shows : Survey: Most respondents feel their streets are unsafe. But FBI says homicides, rapes are decreasing.

The crime rate in the San Fernando Valley is lower than in the rest of Los Angeles and is going down, but more than half the residents of America’s once prototypical suburb say they no longer feel insulated from urban crime and consider their streets unsafe, according to a new poll by The Times.

The poll found that 68% of Valley residents identify crime as the top problem facing their communities, one in five has installed a security alarm and one in 11 has purchased a gun for protection.

The fear is greatest among those living in neighborhoods with a majority of non-Anglo residents, the elderly and women--only one in three of whom say their neighborhood is safe for evening strolls.

The concern is less pronounced among those who live in mostly white communities, young people and men--three in five of whom say they feel safe at night.

Even living behind gates or in security buildings doesn’t erase the concern. The poll found that 62% of those who live in those relatively secure circumstances still fear for their safety at night compared to 50% of those who do not.

“You’ve got two major issues on people’s minds and the first one is crime with a capital C,” said John Brennan, director of the Times Poll. The economy and unemployment, cited by about one in five residents, ranked second.

The random telephone poll of 996 voting age residents of San Fernando, Burbank and the Valley portion of Los Angeles was conducted during the weekend of April 24 and 25 and has a sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points.

The survey asked respondents how well things were going in their communities and then gave them an opportunity to identify the top two problems.

A narrow majority, 54%, said things were going well in their community. But a sizable minority--four in 10--said things were going badly and 54% said things were still getting worse.

Besides crime and economic worries, no other concern was mentioned as a serious problem by even as many as one in 10 respondents. For example, only 9% said education was their community’s most pressing problem while 8% cited graffiti and 6% drugs.

Residents of the Los Angeles portion of the Valley are more likely than those in Burbank to consider their streets unsafe. But crime also is the top community problem in Burbank.

Although concern about crime and the sense of unease about venturing out after dark are slightly higher now than in the past, they are not new feelings for Valley residents. A November, 1989, Times survey of the Valley found crime virtually tied with drugs as the most important problems facing Valley communities; in that survey, 45% said their streets were unsafe compared with 52% now.

In the most recent poll, one in four said a household member had been a crime victim with car theft cited most often, by one in 10.

Los Angeles Police Detective Al Michelena, who compiles crime statistics for the department’s Valley Bureau, said he was not surprised by the widespread feelings of insecurity.

He said graffiti is now showing up even in affluent Valley neighborhoods. And gang members are more mobile than in the past. Residents of otherwise safe areas become unnerved by high-profile crimes such as the recent spate of deadly carjackings, drive-by shootings, campus slayings, ATM robberies and the Easter Sunday killing of a 2-year-old boy in Balboa Park.

“Personally, I go to Northridge mall and I see gang members and I never used to see the presence of potential criminals all over the Valley,” Michelena said. “I find it frightening and I think a lot of citizens do too.”

Statistics alone, however, do not appear to fully justify such fears.

The FBI’s major crime index showed 98.5 incidents of crime such as murder, rape, robbery and car theft per 1,000 residents of the city of Los Angeles in 1992.

In the Valley, there were about 80 major crimes per 1,000 people, a rate derived by The Times using the FBI’s methodology. That crime rate is lower than in such large cities as Seattle and San Diego, which are generally regarded as relatively safe cities.

Homicides fell 5% in 1992 in the Valley from the previous year, rapes were down 14% and burglaries went up only 1%. Police attributed the decline, in part, to the preventive effect of the community policing strategies instituted in 1991 by Deputy Police Chief Mark A. Kroeker, who commands the department’s five Valley divisions.

A Times Poll conducted last August, however, found that nearly eight in 10 Valley residents were unaware of the change in approach, which casts police officers in the role of problem solvers as well as crime fighters. Although the recent Times Poll found that the Police Department’s approval rating had climbed to 62% from 48% a year ago, people don’t feel safer.

Wesley G. Skogan, a Northwestern University professor who last year wrote the book “Disorder and Decline: Crime and the Spiral of Decay in American Cities,” said the mismatch between the incidence and perception of crime is a “classic” finding of polls conducted in largely middle-class areas such as the Valley.

“What’s going on here is that residents of the Valley have a shorter list of problems and when you have a shorter list of problems crime usually comes to the top,” Skogan said. “When you go into poor neighborhoods, people . . . would come up with a long list of problems, of which crime would be one, but it’s not clear that crime would be on top.”

But the safety concerns of Valley residents are shared by residents of other parts of the city. A Times Poll prior to April’s mayoral election found that residents in every section of the city want whoever is elected to tackle crime as the top priority.

The concern about crime expressed by poll respondent Jade Myers, who moved to Canoga Park from North Hollywood eight years ago because she thought she would be safer, is typical.

“There’s crime in my neighborhood, there’s crime all around,” said Myers, who has lived in the Valley for 30 years. “You can’t even drive down the street without watching the car next to you to see if someone’s going to shoot you.”

In March, burglars broke into her rented house and stole $41,000 worth of jewelry and art. She’s now having window bars installed.

Responding to those fears, mayoral candidates Richard Riordan and, since the April primary, Michael Woo, have touted plans for adding as many as 3,000 officers to the department’s 7,600-member force. That build-up would allow a temporary show of force by police, like that displayed during the tense days surrounding the verdict in the recent federal civil rights trial of the officers accused of beating motorist Rodney G. King, to become a regular occurrence.

North Hollywood resident Elizabeth Van Sickle said that adding more police “would stop a lot of stuff” because officers would be able to “practice zero tolerance” for minor crimes that they don’t have time to pursue now.

Van Sickle is a marketing researcher who usually travels by bicycle. Her bike has been stolen four times from her balcony since 1985 and after the last time she installed a motion-activated floodlight.

She said fear of the gang members and drug dealers who prowl her neighborhood prevents her from going to concerts at the Palomino nightclub, which is five minutes away. “There’s things to do in the area and you can’t because you can’t get around safely,” she said.

Like a third of those polled, Van Sickle said she wants to move. Of those who would like to move, more than four in 10 say they would do so to escape crime.

John Irwin, a retired professor of sociology who taught criminology at San Francisco State University, said merely arresting more people will backfire. Since 1983, the number of people imprisoned in California has increased five-fold but has not made people feel safer. Rather, he said, underlying problems of poverty, lack of opportunity and poor schools have to be addressed.

He said few politicians are willing to preach that message and, instead, affluent people try to escape, either by moving away or barricading themselves behind security devices.

But that further polarizes a community, he said. Neighborhoods where people know each other and speak to one another have a lower incidence of crime. Indeed, the poll found that residents of gated communities and security buildings were even more worried than those who lived elsewhere.

“The more we become isolated individuals . . . the more dangerous it becomes for us and Los Angeles is the model for those . . . trends,” said Irwin, who grew up in San Fernando. “Everybody has this dream of a castle up in Malibu with a big gate and a guard and a security system . . . and then they drive their Porsche down there and someone breaks in and carjacks it.”

He said crime rates nationwide haven’t changed for 20 years but that politicians and the media have capitalized on the growing fear. “For politicians it’s a freebie and they can harp on crime and not offend any constituency,” he said. The media, he said, contribute to those feelings by publicizing particularly gruesome or unusual crimes, such as the recent carjacking in Chatsworth that resulted in the death of Naghi Ghoraishy or the slaying of Sherri Foreman, a pregnant woman killed outside a Sherman Oaks ATM.

Meanwhile, even Valley residents who do not feel plagued by crime are beginning to wonder.

Poll respondent Dennis Richards, 25, said he has lived in a family-oriented neighborhood near Sun Valley for 18 years. He said it’s the kind of place where people take care of their lawns and keep their houses painted and wave hello to each other and crime is not one of his top concerns.

Not far away, though, bars cover the windows, renters outnumber homeowners and the houses are run-down. “I see that area growing and ours shrinking,” he said. Crime “isn’t out of hand now, but I see the potential.”

David Delgado, a Hughes Aircraft maintenance worker who lives in San Fernando, said he is ready to leave the state partly because of crime.

His roommate’s car has been stolen twice in the past few years. A man was shot in the head and killed at the gas station down the street several years ago, he often hears gunshots, and graffiti now seems to mar every wall.

“It’s just kind of dirty and ugly here now,” he said. “It’s turned into a foul place to live.”

Valley’s Voice on Crime

Although the crime rate in the San Fernando Valley is lower than in the rest of Los Angeles, many Valley residents do not feel safe. Results of an April 24-25 poll of 996 adult Valley residents are shown below.

Protecting Yourself

Have you taken any steps to protect you and your family from crime or not? Taken steps: 53% No steps: 44% Don’t Know: 3% Steps Taken Alarm: 19% Weapon: 9% Awareness: 8% Dog: 8% Lighting: 7% More locks: 5% Bars on windows: 4% Auto anti-theft system: 3% Neighborhood watch: 2% Stay in: 2% Fence: 1% Other: 7% *

After Dark

Despite declining crime rates, more than half of Valley residents say they do not feel safe at night in their neighborhoods.

How safe do you feel being out along at night walking in your neighborhood? Very safe: 12% Somewhat safe: 35% Somewhat unsafe: 27% Very unsafe: 25% Don’t Know: 1% *

Brushes with Crime

Only one in four Valley residents said a household member had been a crime victim, with car theft cited most often.

In the last year, have you--or has anyone in your immediate family--been the victim of a crime in your community? Not a victim: 75% Victim of crime: 25% Source: Los Angeles Times Poll

HOW THE POLL WAS CONDUCTED

The Times Poll interviewed 966 San Fernando Valley adults from the cities of Los Angeles, Burbank and San Fernando, by telephone, April 24 and 25. Telephone numbers were chosen from a list of all exchanges in the area. Random-digit dialing techniques were used to ensure that both listed and non-listed numbers had an opportunity to be contacted. The sample was weighted slightly to conform with census figures for sex, race, age, education and household size. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. The margin of sampling error for the total sample is plus or minus 4 percentage points. For certain subgroups, the error margin is somewhat higher. Poll results can also be affected by other factors such as question wording and the order in which questions are presented.

Crime Leads List

Crime outranks all others as the problem on Valley residents’ minds

What do you think is the most important problem facing your community today? Problem: Percent Crime: 68% Unemployment: 13% Economy: 9% Education: 9% Graffiti: 8% Drugs: 6% Homeless: 4% Growth: 3% Immigrants: 3% Racism: 2% Traffic: 2% Police brutality: 2% Youths: 2% Lack of community: 2% Environment: 1% Public transportation: 1% Government leaders: 1% Neighborhoods: 1% No family values: 1% Lack of police: 1% Carjacking: 1% Apathy: 1% Other: 8% No problems: 1% Don’t know: 3% Note: Does not add to 100% because respondents were allowed up to two responses.

Source: Los Angeles Times Poll