Residents to Be Polled on L.A. Crime, Police

Researchers from USC are launching a survey of Los Angeles residents to gauge the public’s perception of crime and the Police Department’s efforts in fighting it.

LAPD officials said they will use the survey findings to determine how the department can best serve the public and become more responsive to residents.

Specifically, police and researchers hope to learn what crime problems Angelenos fear the most in their communities, how residents interact with police, and whether they believe that police are succeeding or failing when it comes to combating crime and addressing “quality of life” issues, such as vandalism and loitering.

“This is an opportunity to see what our strengths and weaknesses are so we can continue what we do well and shore up our weaknesses,” said Lt. Jim McDonnell, who oversees the LAPD’s community policing efforts.

The survey is the most comprehensive effort to poll residents about crime and police service in the department’s history, he said.

Results will be used as a benchmark to measure the department’s effectiveness in serving the public, fighting crime and adopting community-based policing, McDonnell said. He added that because USC researchers are conducting the survey, the results will carry more weight and credibility within the community than had it been done by the LAPD.

The 10-page questionnaire, which covers more than 40 police service and crime issues, asks residents how safe they feel in their neighborhoods, whether they have been victimized by crime and if they believe police in their communities are helpful.

The survey seeks to determine how likely a person is to call police when witnessing problems such as someone putting graffiti on a wall or a fight between two teenagers.

“It is important to provide the LAPD with a tool so they can get input from a broad range of community residents that they normally might not contact,” said Cheryl Maxson, a USC sociologist who is leading the project.

Maxson said mail and telephone surveys will be conducted in four demographically different LAPD areas: Pacific, West Valley, Hollenbeck and Southeast divisions. The survey, which will poll about 3,000 city residents, will be offered in English, Spanish and a third, as-yet-undetermined language.

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USC researchers received a grant to do the work from the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice. They said they are still refining the questions and plan to begin polling residents within a month. They plan to release the results next summer.

LAPD officials said they hope the survey will show whether there is a disparity between crime levels in the city and residents’ fear of crime.

Although crime has steadily dropped citywide over the past five years, as it has nationwide, the public’s fear of crime appears to remain high, criminologists and sociologists say. Police and researchers have blamed much of that reaction on extensive media coverage of crime.

USC researchers also are looking at what factors shape the public’s opinion of the LAPD, asking residents whether they have personal or family contact with officers, whether the department has a certain reputation in the neighborhood and whether their opinion is shaped by newspapers and television police coverage.

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Such information might prove helpful to department officials who are ever conscious of the LAPD’s evolving public image, which seems to take new shape with high-profile events from the Rodney King beating in 1991 to the North Hollywood shootout with two bank robbers in February.

Police experts say surveys are most valuable in helping law enforcement agencies assess their efforts in fighting crime.

“Surveys like this can be an eye-opener for a department,” said Rialto Police Capt. Timm Browne, a spokesman for the California Peace Officers Assn. “Although we may think we’re doing a great job in fighting crime, it’s important to know what the public thinks. If residents have a different view, that can be a problem. Perceptions sometimes become reality in a community.”

Although planning for the survey was underway before Chief Bernard C. Parks was sworn into office in August, the new chief frequently has mentioned his desire that the LAPD become more responsive to residents.

“It’s a sign of him being a very progressive police chief,” said former San Jose Police Chief Joseph McNamara, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

McNamara said it is a tactic taken directly from the private sector.

“It’s what any good business does,” he said. “We have customers out there and we have to be customer friendly. . . . It’s an enlightened thing to do. You can learn a lot about your department.”