RESIDENTS IN SOUTH CAPE FEEL SAFE

Residents in South Cape Girardeau feel safe and are generally satisfied with police, says a federally sponsored survey.

Police and others in law enforcement were encouraged by the results, which were gathered this spring through a cooperative effort by Weed and Seed, police and Southeast Missouri State University.

National statistics typically show that only 50 percent of crimes are reported because respondents believe police won't do anything, said John Wade, chairman of Southeast's criminal justice department.

Of the 20.8 percent of South Cape residents who said they were crime victims, 86.6 percent said they had called police. This was the response of 13 out of 15 crime victims who answered the survey.

"This says something good about our police," Wade said.

The survey polled an area of 435 households, from which 72 useable questionnaires were tabulated, he said.

Two Southeast criminal justice students conducted the survey by stopping at every sixth house in the area, bordered by the Mississippi River, Independence Street, West End Boulevard and the south city limits.

This target area was chosen for Weed and Seed, a program of the U.S. Justice Department designed to weed out violent crime, drug use and gang activity in neighborhoods while funding grass-roots improvements in those areas.

About 65 percent of respondents were not aware they lived in a Weed and Seed neighborhood. This does not bother Southeast Missouri Weed and Seed director Lisa Lane, who said name recognition is a common problem among the five Southeast Missouri cities that participate in Weed and Seed.

The survey provides information that will help the program better serve the community, Lane said.

Establishing neighborhood watch groups will be one priority, said John Simpson, newly hired seeding coordinator for Cape Girardeau. As seeding coordinator, Simpson creates and assists in implementing community programs in the target area.

One watch group, involving 10 families living around Morgan Oak and Ellis streets, has recently started, said Rick Hetzel, police chief.

The survey demonstrates that, besides for a small minority who consistently cause problems, South Cape residents are satisfied with police, Hetzel said.

Hetzel said he would like to see the survey expanded to other areas of Cape Girardeau.

The survey, which can serve as a measure of Weed and Seed's effectiveness, could be conducted often, Wade said.

"We could put students down there with the surveys every semester," he said.