Sunday, June 23, 1996

Texas Poll show Texans feel safe in their homes

By ANNA M. TINSLEY
Harte-Hanks Texas Poll News Syndicate

Copyright 1996 Harte-Hanks Communications

More Texans feel safe in their homes at night than they have in at least seven years, according to the Harte-Hanks Texas Poll.

But 97 percent of Texans still believe juvenile crime is a serious problem - and that poverty and one-parent families are the fastest-growing reasons for that problem.

The most recent survey, conducted June 3-13, found that 91 percent of Texans feel safe in their homes compared with 85 percent two years ago. The closest people have felt to being this secure was in spring 1992, 89 percent, and spring 1989, 88 percent.

Richard Hawkins, a sociology professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said it has taken Texans a long time to feel so secure despite a decrease in crime statewide.

"It's somewhat surprising that (so many Texans) feel safe in their neighborhoods," Hawkins said. "But it could be due to a real effect, that violent crime has dropped off in recent years."

Almost all major crimes in Texas - murders, robberies, rapes, burglaries, car thefts and aggravated assaults - decreased in 1995, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety's most recent reports. Overall, major crimes decreased 1.4 percent from 1994 to 1995.

Meanwhile, 24 percent of Texans have been touched by crime - or had a family member affected. And 55 percent would feel safe walking alone at night in their neighborhood.

In February 1994, 47 percent felt safe walking alone at night and 27 percent had been personally affected by crime, or a family member had been affected.

Despite that, the vast majority consider juvenile crime a serious problem.

"You can't pick up a paper or watch a TV program when it doesn't seem that that particular part of society is falling apart at the seams," said Mark Clark, director of governmental relations for the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas, whose group is the largest law enforcement organization in the state. "You hear of a kid killing a great-grandmother for her car. ... People think, 'That could have been my great-grandmother, my mother or me.' "

Juvenile arrests jumped 2.4 percent - from 178,677 in 1994 to 182,956 in 1995. But the year before, juvenile arrests increased 15.6 percent - from 154,524 in 1993 to 178,677 in 1994, according to a 1995 DPS overview of Texas crime.

Major causes for juvenile crime cited in the poll include a lack of consistent parental discipline (98 percent), neglect by parents (97 percent), low morals (94 percent), alcohol abuse (93 percent), poor academic achievement or dropping out of school (94 percent), physical abuse from parents (87 percent) poverty (84 percent), TV violence (80 percent), and an increase in one-parent families (84 percent). The biggest jump in probable causes, Texans feel, is poverty - which increased from 77 percent to 84 percent - and one-parent families - which vaulted from 64 percent to 84 percent.

And those problems usually are related, said Rosalie N. Ambrosino, an associate professor of social work at the University of Texas in Austin. Many single parents, especially single mothers, earn minimum wage and may have to work two or more jobs to provide for their children, she said.
And their children may be angry about the lifestyle.

"They may see an easier way to get the things they want and turn to crime," she said. "Single-parent families and poverty go hand in hand."

Poverty isn't just a factor in juvenile crime, though.

Although Texans feel safer in their neighborhoods than they have in years, those who feel the least safe are the ones who earn less than $20,000 a year.

Of Texans who earn less than $10,000, 55 percent are afraid to walk alone at night, compared with 53 percent who earn less than $20,000.

"Crime is more of a concern to them," said SMU's Hawkins. "They are more likely to have seen or known someone who was a crime victim. The quality of protection in their neighborhood is less."

The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. The Office of Survey Research of the University of Texas surveyed 1,000 adult Texans for Harte-Hanks Communications Inc.