QUALITIES OF LIFE, CAPE GIRARDEAU; SPECIAL REPORT: PUBLIC SAFETY; WHAT DO THE NUMBERS MEAN?

Crime statistics gauge reported crime and not actual crime, a fact that police say can be misleading.

"A lot of people put a lot of weight on crime numbers," said police Sgt. Carl Kinnison, who also teaches criminal justice courses at Southeast Missouri State University.

"We're dealing with crimes that are reported. You may see an increase or decrease in crime, but it may not have anything to do with the numbers," he said.

Kinnison uses rape as an example: As few as 1 in 10 rapes are ever actually reported to police, Kinnison said. So it's impossible to say how many rapes actually occur in a year.

"What actually happens? How much actual crime is there? Who knows?" Kinnison said. "We only know what people tell us."

Different factors affect whether or not someone will report a crime. Fear of retribution is one. Another is the responsiveness and attitude of the police officers who take the reports, he said.

"You want to see a decrease in crime reports, all you have to do is be very hateful, rude and obnoxious to people," Kinnison said. "If we were to do that, do you think people are going to call? If we had an attitude that we don't care, people aren't going to call us to file reports."

Numbers are also misleading when looking at percentages. In Cape Girardeau, the numbers are so small that you have to be very careful about reporting increases and decreases, Kinnison said. He said if there are no murders one year and one murder the next, then there has been a 100 percent increase in murders.

Another misleading number involves police response times. The average time it takes a unit to respond to a call has risen since 1990, statistics show. While the average response time is at 14 minutes, the statistic don't show that police respond to emergency calls in three minutes or less.

Having said that statistics are at best unreliable, Kinnison said that crime statistics are all the public has to watch trends and comparisons. He said that Cape Girardeau always ranks lower in crime categories in both the state and national level.

"The chances of a crime happening in Cape are less, statistically, than St. Louis and most other places in St. Louis or the United States," Kinnison said.

Police Chief Rick Hetzel said he would not advise a citizen to draw any conclusions about how safe Cape Girardeau is from crime statistics.

"The reason why is very simple: We're very proactive, we're very responsive and therefore, our reports of crime is not going to be an actual reflection of crime," he said.

The department's responsiveness is one of the things he is very proud of. Police have responded to a call where a light bulb had been stolen. There are departments in the U.S. who would never dream of doing that, Hetzel said.

"If you have a community that has a lot of confidence in its police department, they call us on a routine basis, know we're responsive, caring, and we're professional, then crime reports are going to go up. So more crime reports aren't necessarily bad," Hetzel said.

It is ironic that if a police department is caring and responsive and crime reports go up, that people think the department is less successful, Hetzel said.

"If we are abusive and the public becomes apathetic, they don't want to call us because they don't think we can solve the problem, they don't want to call us and our numbers go down," Hetzel said. "Consequently, our figures would reflect a very successful police operation because our numbers go down."

In the first 120 since Hetzel became chief, 120 arrests have occurred that never would have happened if not for Operation Safe Streets.

Does that mean there's more crime because there are more arrests? Not in this instance, Hetzel said.

So is there an accurate way to measure crimes? The answer is the same from Kinnison and Hetzel: Community surveys.

Said Hetzel: "Go to citizens and businesses and ask them: Are we successful in protecting you from crime? Do you feel your community is a safe place to be?"

The chief said he has spoken with a university professor about doing such a survey next year.

The police department certainly does impact a community's quality of life, Hetzel said.

"By and large the officers are doing a good job and the community is very supportive and is doing a good job," Hetzel said. "We can do better -- we need to become more familiar with preventative programs to reduce crime. It's as simple as people locking their doors, making sure their surroundings are safe before they get out."