Fear Persists in Wake of Falling Crime Rates : High-profile cases shouldn’t obscure hard-won progress

Across the country, and right here in the Valley, crime is down but concerns are up. Nationally, lawlessness ranked as a leading domestic concern even though every kind of serious crime fell nationwide last year. And in the Valley, through the first six months of 1996, crime rates have again fallen by comparison to the same period in 1995. The new Valley crime statistics are also part of a continuing three-year, downward trend. But few believe that there has been a real decrease. Few feel safer, and many still feel that the quality of life in their communities is being further eroded by criminality. There are telling reasons why.

Per usual, there is bad news within the good. The West Valley division did see an increase in crime over the first six months of last year, but it was the only part of the Valley that did. And property crimes in the West Valley (usually that area’s biggest crime problem) were down significantly.

Van Nuys was a site of mixed crime news. Violent crime there is down overall, but homicides have trebled by comparison to the first six months of 1995, from three to nine.

* Some reassuring reasons.

We’ve heard all about the hundreds of Los Angeles Police Department officers who have deserted the force for jurisdictions that offer higher pay and better working conditions. And the mayor and the City Council are enmeshed in their biggest dogfight to date over how to pay for more officers.

But all of that has obscured the fact that the LAPD is already substantially bigger and better able to put many more cops on the street. When Mayor Richard Riordan took office, LAPD strength stood at 7,602 officers. As of May 15 of this year, the force had grown to 8,939.

This, in turn, has aided the department’s community-oriented policing programs, which LAPD Deputy Chief Martin Pomeroy has attributed to at least some of the decrease in crime.

Special task forces, such as Foothill division’s “zero tolerance” unit, have assigned extra officers to specific types of crime in certain hot spot areas.

“Zero tolerance” for example, works against gang-related crimes along the Van Nuys Boulevard corridor between freeways.

In the Devonshire division, LAPD officials cite success with increased overtime patrols and so-called reverse drug stings. Still other police officials credit increased citizen support and involvement.

* A lingering concern.

But there is some concern. Back in March, Times reporter Jim Newton raised eyebrows by pointing out that arrests made by the LAPD had plunged from 290,000 to 189,000 in the past five years, a drop far more precipitous than any decline in the crime rate. The drop was puzzling enough for Mayor Riordan to demand a report on the matter from the Police Commission.

The department is likely to argue that it still makes more arrests per officer than police forces in other large cities, and that the department has moved away from an arrest-driven policy that picked up many more suspects, only to release them later. That may be so, but the public deserves a definitive answer about why more officers have not only been making fewer arrests, but have also been issuing fewer traffic citations and conducting fewer field interviews.

* Why no one believes that crime has dropped.

It is the shock value of certain crimes, and the inexplicable nature of others, that still leaves people with a palpable sense of unease regarding their safety.

Review the photographs of four Conejo Valley teenagers in the newspaper recently. They look like youths anywhere. But on May 28, all were found guilty of first-degree murder in the stabbing of a 16-year-old Agoura Hills boy who was the son of an LAPD officer. The argument that led to the crime was over a relatively small amount of marijuana.

Meanwhile, the teenagers who videotaped their drive-by paint pellet and baseball bat attacks on a dozen Valley residents made the national television news broadcasts.

The youths had taped their attacks in order to be able to enjoy them again later. Fortunately, the same tape was used to successfully convict them.

The shock of such crimes shouldn’t be allowed to eclipse what may be some real progress against crime. As long as we hear that the LAPD has not gone overboard in softening its old and overly aggressive style, there may be real cause for feeling safer about living in the Valley.