ANTI-CRIME PROGRAM HONORED.

Byline: Theresa Moreau Daily News Staff Writer

Crime has taken a dive in the foothills.

During the first six months of this year, major crime dropped 17 percent in the Los Angeles Police Department's Foothill Division. For all of 1996, it dropped 9.7 percent.

Officials at the station credit their program ``Zero Tolerance: Campaign Against Crime,'' a joint effort between the community and the police.

The state attorney general's Crime and Violence Prevention Center, the California Crime Prevention Officers Association and the governor's Office of Criminal Justice Planning agree. They've given the Foothill Division, one of 80 entrants, a nonmonetary award recognizing its implementation of a successful community policing team.

Capt. Ronald Bergmann of the Foothill Division created the program after he studied crime statistics and noted that the Van Nuys Corridor - Van Nuys Boulevard from Woodman Avenue to Foothill Boulevard - accounted for 5 percent of the division's area but 33 percent of the crime.

So, after overseeing the formation of the Clergy-Police Council and the School-Police Council to increase community input regarding local police operations and crime, Bergmann decided to target the corridor and attack the crimes that affect residents' quality of life.

``Zero Tolerance'' began March 15, 1996. Police immediately began to issue citations for misdemeanors such as drinking in public, curfew violations and truancy - ``the things ignored for many years because we concentrated on the big things,'' Bergmann said.

For the first 10 weeks of the year, crime already had increased 2.4 percent, but only two weeks after the program started, crime dropped by the same amount.

CAPTION(S):

map, chart

MAP: LAPD FOOTHILL DIVISION

CHART: CRIME INDEX