WHAT WORRIES LEXINGTON THE MOST

Survey Says Crime, Drugs And Violence

Lexington residents are more worried than people nationwide about education
and race relations, according to a study released this month.

People rated drugs, crime and violence as a problem in Lexington more than
any other issue in the survey funded by the John S. and John L. Knight
Foundation.

The survey of 500 Lexington residents was conducted last fall as a way for
the foundation to decide how to allocate its charitable donations and
measure their effectiveness.

A similar national survey was conducted for comparison with the 26 local
studies by the foundation.

Fears about crime were prevalent nationally.

Bruce Gale, acting director of the Urban Studies Institute at the
University of Louisville, said he suspects that, when things are going well
economically for most people, being a victim of random violence becomes a
concern.

Over the last few years, Gale said, "Crime went down, but accordingly,
people's perception of such did not."

In Lexington, 23 percent of poll respondents said crime was a big problem;
54 percent said it's a small problem. One-fifth said it's not a problem.

Three-quarters of those polled in Lexington said they feel very safe at
night; nearly half said they are safe in their neighborhoods after dark.
Less than 20 percent said they feel safe downtown at night; the same number
said they feel "not too safe" or "not at all safe" there after dark.

The two issues that most of those polled here considered big problems are
that there are too many unsupervised children and teen-agers and that
people don't get involved enough in their communities.

The apathy concern was about the same here and across the nation. In
Lexington, 32 percent said people like themselves can have a big effect on
the community.

Concern about young people, at least the way they're educated and
supervised, was higher here than nationally.

More than two-thirds of Lexington respondents cited unsupervised children
as a problem and more than half said that public schools do not provide a
high-quality education.

Two-thirds of Lexington residents said tension between different racial and
ethnic groups is a problem here. Less than half the respondents in the
national survey said that was a problem.

Gale said that while Lexington is relatively segregated other cities seem
to be moving beyond that. "I think that the perception that the rest of the
country is changing and Louisville and Lexington aren't that much," he said.

The telephone poll of 500 randomly selected adults in Lexington was
conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates between Oct. 19 and Nov.
1. The margin of error at the 95 percent confidence level is plus or minus
5 percent.

The Knight Foundation, established in 1950, makes national grants in
journalism education, and the field of arts and culture. It also supports
organizations where the Knight brothers were involved in publishing
newspapers but is wholly separate from and independent of those newspapers.