CAN'T JUST BLAME DRUGS, GROWTH

Crime Statistics Are A Warning

Phoenix residents have good reason to ask tough questions about the FBI
statistics on serious crime.

Despite an 8 percent national decline in the murder rate - including
declines in Mesa, Scottsdale and Tucson - the murder rate in Phoenix rose
14 percent from 1998 to 1999, according to FBI statistics.

The official explanation - as offered to Republic reporter Beverly Ford by
Phoenix Police Chief Harold Hurtt - is that the booming drug trade is to blame.

Mayor Skip Rimsza also points to the drug trade as a culprit, and says the
city has taken steps to address it.

The official glass of lemonade from these sour statistics is this:
Phoenix's homicide rate was down 36 percent at the end of April over the
same period last year, according to Detective Bob Ragsdale of the Phoenix
Police Department.

Furthermore, the detective points out, the FBI statistics were not adjusted
for population growth. That's bound to make this fast-growing community
look bad.

But there's more to this than can be blamed on drugs and growth.

Although murder rates were down nationwide, the decline was smallest (2
percent) in cities of more than 500,000. Murder rates also were up in New
York City, St. Louis, Denver.

Criminologists suggest that big cities lead trends. That means the national
swing toward lower crime rates that began in 1992 may be ending.

It's time to ask about the implications of the facts behind the figures.

Harsher firearms laws and longer prison sentences no doubt get a good deal
of the credit. But so, too, do simple economic and demographic realities.
Unemployment is at record lows, and, in the 1990s, there were fewer teenage
males, who are the most likely to break the law.

Even if the economy stays robust, the demographics are against us. Hundreds
of thousands of men who went to prison in the get-tough-on-crime '90s will
be released in the next few years. Meanwhile, the population of U.S.
teenagers will rise by 15 percent in the next six years.

The key question is this: How will Phoenix prepare?

Ex-cons will have to be monitored and channeled into useful work. More
importantly, prevention measures have to be stepped up to keep today's
youth from becoming tomorrow's delinquents.

Public investment in after-school activities and quality preschool programs
will pay for themselves in lower crime rates.

If Arizona treats the FBI numbers on Phoenix as an early warning signal,
there will be reason to celebrate in years to come.