CRIME AND SAFETY

A-to-Z Guide to Greater Cincinnati:
"Best Place to Live in North America"

Beat cop on Main St.

Cincinnati one of safest cities

BY TANYA BRICKING
The Cincinnati Enquirer

When it comes to crime, Cincinnati is rated G.

Sure, weird things happen here. It's the birthplace of cult leader Charles Manson and was home to Donald Harvey, the nurse who confessed in 1987 to murdering 24 patients at a local hospital.

But Cincinnati is also the safest big city in Ohio. Violent crime has been dropping since 1991. If you're a victim of crime here, chances are someone broke into your car.

Cincinnati ranks nationally as the 54th safest place among the 100 largest cities and 255 metropolitan areas, according to "City Crime Rankings," a Kansas-based publication released in 1995.

Compared with other cities in the region, crime stats indicate you're more likely to be victimized in Cleveland or Indianapolis but probably safer in Lexington or Louisville.

The most alarming crime trend in Cincinnati is the rise in juvenile crime. With 68 in 1,000 area teens being arrested for violent crimes, Greater Cincinnati is worse than the national ratio of 44 in 1,000.

The most notorious juvenile crime in recent history was Clay Shrout's rampage in 1994 in suburban Union, Ky. The 17-year-old killed his parents and two sisters and then held his trigonometry class at gunpoint.

Usually, controversial issues - such as newspaper ads publishing the names of johns, or City Council trying to ban a Ku Klux Klan cross from a downtown holiday display - thrust the city into the national spotlight.

Controversies continue to provide dinnertime conversation in the Queen City.

Bring up Pete Rose's conviction for filing false tax returns, and you'll find yourself in a discussion about whether he should be admitted into the baseball Hall of Fame.

Mention Mapplethorpe and get an earful about the city's conservative reputation. The 1990 flap pitted Prosecutor-turned-Sheriff Simon Leis Jr. against the downtown Contemporary Arts Center and then-director Dennis Barrie, who were charged with pandering obscenity for exhibiting sexually graphic photographs by the late Robert Mapplethorpe. The CAC won.

Don't be surprised to hear Cincinnati jokingly referred to as Sin- cinnati: City leaders act as moral gatekeepers, keeping out strip clubs and X-rated movies.