N.C. CRIME RATE SHOWS DECLINE

Actual Incidents Up, But Per-capita Numbers Continue Slide From '90s

RALEIGH -- State justice leaders celebrated yet another drop in the crime
rate Monday by rolling out a rainbow-colored bar chart showing downward
trends for rape, murder and other offenses.

But cheery, colored graphics could be replaced with a lot of gloom if the
economy continues its slowdown, Attorney General Roy Cooper warned Monday.

While the actual incidents of many major crimes, including murders,
robberies and arson, rose in 2000, the rate of crime per 100,000 people
dropped in every big category.

The declining crime rates in the state's Uniform Crime Report reflect a
trend that began in the early 1990s.

Cooper said the drop was due to economic good times, good police work and
tougher sentencing laws that keep felons in prison longer.

"There's been a lot of good news," he said. "We're doing a lot of things
right."

But the recent economic slowdown is bad news. According to the N.C.
Employment Security Commission, the state unemployment rate was 5.2percent
in May, the highest mark in eight years.

"We haven't seen any indication that the impact of increasing unemployment
has hit us yet. But if it continues, my guess is that we will see that,"
said Charlotte-Mecklenburg Chief Darrel Stephens.

Stephens said cutbacks in programs aimed at helping people in poverty also
could result in increases in crime.

The state doesn't have crime figures for 2001. But as of May 31, every
category but robbery was down in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. The overall crime
rate at that time had declined more than 7percent for the year,
Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said.

To help ward off a possible uptick in crime, Stephens said, the department
is continuing to work closely with neighborhoods and focusing on the
illegal drug trade.

"All the things we and the community are doing right now are contributing
to the (crime) conditions," he said. "Hopefully that will minimize any
impact the economy has."

Cooper said rising unemployment and economic instability tend to lead to
increases in every category of crime.

"A slowing economy can change a life on the edge to a life of crime," he
said. " We can already see that criminals are finding new ways to prey on us."

Among those new ways are computer-related crimes and high-tech drug
trafficking. The State Bureau of Investigation has seen a jump in the
number of clandestine drug labs, used to produce narcotics such as
methamphetamines.

State investigators say they're also seeing an increase in illegal
distribution and abuse of the prescription drug OxyContin.