Last year was the safest year in South Hampton Roads, Va., since the dawn of this decade. But readers of The Virginian-Pilot might not have guessed it. One reader even called recently to suggest that we package all of our crime news in a special 'atrocity section.' In that reader's defense, we wrote an average of one murder story a day, not counting briefs. Some were about actual murders, others about murder trials.
All this for an area where a person's chances of being murdered were about one in 100,000 last year. In The Pilot's defense, we did report that violent crime in Portsmouth, the most crime-ridden of the five cities in the South Hampton Roads area, was on the decline for the first time in 12 years. We also reported other trends, both good and bad. In the coming year, we hope to give readers a more accurate picture of crime in our region by reporting on more trends and doing it regularly.
The Pilot has dedicated a weekly page, dubbed Public Safety, for this purpose. We hope the weekly reports will help to make sense of crimes that seem to occur randomly and chaotically. If patterns can be shown, it becomes clear that crimes are not so random, not so chaotic. And it is easier to combat crimes if there are ways to anticipate where they will occur, and when, and to whom. The success of the page, however, depends on being able to quickly produce computer-assisted reporting stories that give readers useful information about crimes, crime prevention and the local criminal justice system.
In short, that means high-volume, high-quality CAR. Status reports on crime can help people evaluate their level of safety. Using local police data or FBI data, you can look at which crimes are going up or down and how your city compares to others. If you have information about where - blocks, census tracts or police patrol zones - crimes happen, you can calculate crime rates for them and see how the different areas within your city are doing.
Use FBI incident data to keep tabs on your local police departments. Look at their clearance rates and their staffing. See how they compare to other similar cities. If the Department of Motor Vehicles in your state keeps records on crashes, you can use it to find the most dangerous stretches of road. Or if you can get your hands on trooper activity reports, you can see who the most prolific writer of traffic tickets is in your area and do a ride-along.