Assessing a Survey’s Fear-Filled Findings : * For First Time, Crime Is No. 1 Concern of Residents

Crime, once thought of as largely a problem of big cities, has arrived in the suburbs. Drive-by shootings in Santa Ana, the fatal wounding with a paint roller of a teen-ager in San Clemente, beach brawls bad enough that police patrols increase, all are signs.

So it’s no surprise that when respondents to the 1993 Orange County Annual Survey were asked what they considered the most important public policy problem, the biggest number, 29%, answered “crime.” In a county where for years the biggest problem was thought to be traffic, and last year was the economy, it was the first time crime hit the top spot.

The survey, which is sponsored by a number of local agencies and businesses, including the Times Orange County Edition, provides valuable information on the county as seen through the eyes of those who live here. It also can help distinguish between perception and reality, although unfortunately when it comes to crime, the two coincide.

Mark Baldassare, a UCI professor who conducted the survey with research associate Cheryl Katz, wondered if people worried about crime just because they read and heard about it so much in the newspapers and on television. But when those surveyed were asked about their personal experiences, nearly 30% said they or someone in their immediate family were victims of a crime in their neighborhood in the past year. That’s an increase of 10% over the figure in 1982, when the survey began.

Baldassare correctly noted that a combination of increasing crime and a bad economy are making Orange County residents less satisfied with life here and more pessimistic about the future. And he was right to say politicians must face the problems and take steps to make residents feel safe. Local government can’t “solve” the crime problem and improve the economy on its own, but it must face up to the changes in the county in recent years and to the growing anxieties of residents.

In commenting on the survey, State Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) reviewed a host of recent anti-crime legislation, both federal and state, but also noted sadly that the tens of thousands of dollars it costs to keep someone behind bars for a year is money that could be spent on health care or education.

Westminster Police Chief James Cook deplored the “empowerment of gangs through firearms,” and rightly went on to point out one link between crime and the economy, which was the No. 2 concern of respondents. In a redevelopment area, for instance, without security there will be no business, Cook said. Shoppers won’t go where they don’t feel safe, and businesses won’t open in a spot where crime abounds.

Although the survey results were almost overwhelmingly gloomy, there are encouraging signs that the problem of crime has been recognized and solutions are being sought. Schools and churches are helping fight the problem. Cook’s own police department has a good anti-gang program. Other police departments are discussing improvements in sharing information about gang members, which is necessary in a society as mobile as ours. We may need to explore regional crime-fighting agencies, the way we have created regional agencies to monitor and improve air quality and seek solutions to traffic problems.

Orange County prides itself on a can-do attitude. With help from all residents and from businesses, social agencies, churches and temples, from government and police, the county will be able to take back the streets.