TOUGH ON CRIMINALS

Raleigh smartly joins other North Carolina cities in adopting an
approach that offers hard-core criminals hard time or a hand up Talk
about an offer too good to refuse. The City of High Point, and the
City of Durham not too much later, rounded up a group of chronic
criminals, and offered to direct them to jobs, housing, food and
clothing. Refuse the help by stubbornly following a life of crime, the
offer went, and the book would be thrown at you hard, by local, state
and federal prosecutors looking to lock you up for the maximum time
possible. Raleigh police plan to adopt the program soon, beginning in
Southeast Raleigh. The program was applied to the West End
neighborhood of High Point beginning two years ago, and it has happily
been credited with cutting crime by 33 percent. The decrease has held.

West End residents told The News & Observer's Jennifer Brevorka and
Janell Ross that what had been an open-air drug bazaar and crime
market was transformed into a place where the elderly can enjoy an
evening on the front porch and kids can wander to the local park and
play in safety. A minor miracle has happened, probably because the
approach combines the best of both responses to crime. Chronic
lawbreakers are treated as they should be -- with steely-eyed toughness.

Habitual criminals are more likely to turn streets into Wild West
affairs and are the reason crime rates spiral up and stay high. A
hearty dose of no-nonsense crime-fighting is warranted. The fact that
police know where to find chronic criminals sends the message that
police probably can pick them up when the time is right. Durham's
approach, called STARS for Strategies to Alleviate and Reduce
Senseless Violence, emphasizes to career criminals that when possible,
their crimes will be funneled to federal courts, which tend to mete
out longer sentences.

At the same time -- usually during the same meeting -- representatives
from government, civic and religious organizations offer their
services to law-breakers who want to break the crime habit.

An argument can be made that repeat criminals don't deserve such aid.
And it's true that law enforcement officials have to engage in some
careful judgment calls here, not appearing to tolerate those who break
the law while acting on behalf of the larger community. And certainly
those criminals who have done violence to others or led children into
the world of drugs have to be dealt with in a tough way. But a
compassionate -- and realistic -- society with an ounce of belief that
people can change and a recognition that a program such as this can
change a chronic trend offers a chance for that to happen.

In High Point, it took the village to achieve success. A former
Harvard University professor helped develop the program, at the
request of a new High Point police chief. The chief, in turn, was
pressured and aided by two churches in a troubled neighborhood.

The church had organized groups to shield youngsters from the drugs
and violence, and had deployed members regularly to tidy up their
tattered neighborhood. But they needed police and prosecutors to do
the hard work of enforcing the law.

The coordinated approach offers communities a decent chance of
seriously denting crime.