Article February 3, 1973 Issue

Walk the Streets—and Be Safe!

DAVID K. WILLIS

As she got off her bus, the young woman took a deep breath. Ahead of her lay a walk of several minutes into a neighborhood well known for the amount of crime in its streets. The people there were black and poor; she was neither. Paint peeled from the houses; gangs of youths roamed; listlessness and resentment seemed to hang in the air like fog.

She had accepted a job teaching in a poverty program, preparing children for elementary school. This was her first day. Friends had been incredulous: "You mean you're going down there? Every day? Alone?" Her husband had found himself thinking that morning: "I wonder if we're doing the right thing."

Many people in that city—as in other cities across the United States—feared to walk the streets alone, especially at night. In other industrialized countries, crime rates were also mounting; governments and police were constantly urged to take more corrective action. Newspapers, TV, and radio stressed human remedies. Women were urged to carry cans of chemical spray in their handbags; men and women were enrolling in karate courses. Politicians, national and local, amid clouds of controversy, urged a variety of human reforms.

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