WASHINGTON — Like most voters, Alice Mustin worries about crime and drugs, even though her Swarthmore neighborhood is pretty safe.
``Every time you turn on the radio, all you hear about is how many people were murdered the night before,'' said the 69-year-old Mustin.
She is also dismayed by the two major-party presidential candidates' trying to outdo each other in toughness: ``Naturally, they are both against crime. But I don't know that one has any more answers than the other.''
Polls have shown repeatedly that people believe crime is the nation's most serious problem, more so than jobs, schools and taxes. A new Inquirer Washington Bureau survey shows that 8 out of 10 voters think crime and drugs are more troublesome than any other problem.
Although Bill Clinton and Bob Dole are responding to that concern, the political rhetoric and people's fear hide this fact:
Crime is going down. Last week, the FBI reported a 3 percent drop in violent crime - below 1.8 million offenses - resulting in the lowest violent-crime rate since 1989. Many big cities showed a drop in such crime as well.
``As boomers get older, their fear of crime rises, even though their risk of crime goes down,'' said Mark Cunniff, the executive director of the National Association of Criminal Justice Planners. ``People see the exceptional crimes on the evening news and in their newspapers. They want to arrest everyone and throw them in jail. Emotions are very strong. We have lost our reason.''
For nearly 30 years, Republicans have owned the crime issue; they have traditionally tried to portray Democrats as lenient on crime. Richard Nixon ran a ``law and order'' campaign in 1968. Ronald Reagan claimed credit for declining crime rates during the 1980s. And George Bush had the famous Willie Horton ad.
But Clinton has usurped the crime issue as he has worked to cast himself as a moderate New Democrat. He won the endorsement of the 270,000-member Fraternal Order of Police.
``Clinton stepped in and said, `Wait, I'm against crime, too,' '' said Mark Warr, a criminologist at the University of Texas. ``He neutralized that issue in a way no Democrat has been able to do for 30 years. Now, it becomes a macho competition: Who hates criminals more?''
Criminologists say there are several possible reasons why crime has declined, including the aging of the population, better police strategies to prevent crime, and new gun-control laws.
