Capt. Leonard Ditchkofsky's comments, included in a story on the civil suit brought by Shannon Schieber's family against the city, that "he believed strongly in alerting the community to threats - using information to make the community a partner in the fight against crime" (Inquirer, Dec. 3), is what crime prevention is all about.

Unfortunately, in this city, the Philadelphia Police Department's district commanders are under no obligation to make crime maps and statistics available to the public.

Schieber's father asserted that "We are absolutely convinced that, had she known what was going on in that community, she would take far more steps to protect herself against this guy." There's a fine line between legitimately withholding information during the course of a criminal investigation, and exposing the community to greater risk of victimization by not alerting all to the potential threat. Are citizens to be used as bait to catch more criminals, or is the goal to reduce victimization?

During these years, as a member of my police district's advisory council, I repeatedly requested crime statistics from police. Each time my requests were either ignored or denied outright. Police told us that there were no patterns to any crime categories and, if there ever were, they would have told us. They never did. They said that all major crimes were "crimes of opportunity," which could happen anywhere, anytime.

Commissioner John F. Timoney's fellow deputy commissioner in New York, Jack Maple, makes a strong case for disclosing crime maps and statistics to citizens on a regular basis in his book The Perfect World. According to Maple, police must, on a regular basis and as widely as possible, "alert the public to crime trends," patterns and chronic conditions in their neighborhoods "so that citizens could use that information to avoid dangerous situations or to aid police in solving the crimes."

Sam Ricks

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