Edition: U.S. / Global

Crime Rates May Be Down, but the Problem Stays Hot With Politicians, and Voters

Published: September 22, 1996
(Page 2 of 2)

A survey conducted for the National Law Journal in 1989 -- after a decade in which the murder rate generally fell -- found many people like Mrs. Hargrove. More than 80 percent of those questioned said they thought crime was worsening in the United States. Another 34 percent of the sample described themselves as feeling ''truly desperate'' about the situation. But in the same poll, almost two-thirds of the people surveyed said the crime problem in their own neighborhood was either improving or staying the same.

Such sentiment has been good political news for Republicans since the crime rate started a long rise in the mid-1960's.

Richard M. Nixon made crime a central theme of both of his successful runs for the Presidency, even at a time when most Americans opposed the death penalty. In 1980, even though the country's homicide rate was hitting a post-World War II peak, the issue was for the most part overshadowed by those of the ailing economy and the hostages in Iran.

But in 1988, George Bush's landslide Presidential victory over Gov. Michael S. Dukakis of Massachusetts owed a debt to a widely criticized television commercial featuring a convicted murderer, Willie Horton, who attacked a couple and raped the woman after being furloughed from a Massachusetts prison.

Mr. Dole turned to the crime issue in part out of a confidence that the rate at which people are actually victimized might be of less political importance than their fears. ''Regardless of what statistics say, ordinary Americans suffer acute anxiety when it comes to their safety,'' said Mr. Dole's campaign press secretary, Nelson Warfield.

The Republican portrayal of Mr. Clinton as tolerant of crime and unperturbed about rising drug use among teen-agers also serves one of Mr. Dole's broader strategic goals, one of his advisers said -- to paint the President as a closet liberal.

The crime issue, the aide said, ''speaks to the weaknesses of liberals on a number of different levels -- a lenient attitude toward personal responsibility, a willingness to blame society's ills on some sort of anti-social behavior and not on the ills of the individual.''

Mr. Clinton's enthusiasm for the fight over crime has only partly to do with figures from the Federal Bureau of Investigation showing that the overall crime rate has dropped steadily since 1991. Since his tenure as Arkansas's Attorney General and Governor, Mr. Clinton has sought to steel himself against the historical Republican attacks, by supporting the death penalty, backing a ban on assault weapons and seeking money for the hiring of more police officers.

The President's aides seemed barely able to contain their glee at having Mr. Clinton endorsed by the nation's biggest police union just as Mr. Dole began on Monday to focus his campaign on crime. In a telephone interview on Thursday, one of Mr. Clinton's political advisers, Rahm Emanuel, characterized the President at least nine times as standing ''shoulder to shoulder'' with law-enforcement officers.

''I think the Republicans are in a time warp on this,'' Mr. Emanuel said. ''They have tried to use it over the past 25 years against Democrats. But against President Clinton, with his record, it is not an effective tool.''

Pollsters tend to agree. In a telephone survey of 1,020 people on Sept. 3 and 4 by ABC News and The Washington Post, 46 percent of those questioned said they trusted Mr. Clinton to do a better job fighting crime, as against 40 percent for Mr. Dole. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Mr. Clinton may also be the beneficiary of another gap between numbers and perceptions, one in which some of those who sense that crime is getting worse still believe he can better solve the problem.

''They say it's gone down, but I really haven't seen the change,'' said Will Williams, 21, a bus company maintenance worker in Tampa. ''It's like Bill Clinton cutting the budget. I haven't seen any cuts yet.''

Mr. Williams added that he would vote for the President nonetheless. ''Bob Dole says a lot of things that don't add up for me,'' he said.

Photo: The crime rate has been falling in Tampa, Fla., but Ed W. Block and many others there still rank it as their major concern. (Peter Cosgrove for The New York Times)