Crime prevention was the order of the day when HUPD announced a program to help combat laptop thefts.

In what law enforcement officials called "hardening the target," students were able to have a metallic plaque affixed to their laptop.

The procedure, costing about $10, would allow HUPD to track stolen laptops and, in the hopes of police officials, detour would-be thieves from hardened computers.

Ironically, the HUPD lieutenant responsible for crime prevention, William K. Donaldson, was fired in the wake of the department's May shake-up.

Cambridge saw similar problems. Although its chief, Ronnie L. Watson, was hired to implement community policing, union problems and internal dissension have impeded his vision. The union protested against "geographic assignments"--placing officers semi-permanently in specific areas to bring them closer to their community.

Racial tensions, too, are plaguing the department, according to a prominent Cambridge politician.

Still, the numbers look good. Although violent crime was up 6 percent, the city has very little crime per-capita.

House break-ins and car thefts are still major problems--Cambridge's location and 17th century road construction make it difficult to catch suspects fleeing from the city.

The number of rapes and attempted rapes remained steady--in the first quarter of 1999 five rapes were reported and all led to convictions. Stranger-on-stranger rapes were rare.

Still, crime was up in the Harvard Square area. A series of wallet thefts plagued restaurants along Mt. Auburn Street, Winthrop Street and Church Street at the beginning of the year. Police have identified two growing trends--thefts from cafes and coffee shops between noon and 3 p.m., and thefts from restaurants between 7 p.m. and 11 p.m.

Since March 7, eight people--mostly young females--have been pickpocketed in the Square area.

There was a bit of good news. The CPD arrested a 45-year-old Hyde Park man and charged him with a series of so-called "smash-n-grab" robberies in Harvard and Central Squares.

Although the overall rate of reported robberies is down 30 percent from the first quarter of 1998, street robberies continue to be common in the streets around many of the River Houses, happening with highest frequency on Cowperthwaite, Bow, Arrow and DeWolfe Streets.

But crime statistics are all relative. Blue-light phones can be found in abundance, and calls for service usually bring an HUPD officer to the scene of crime within minutes.

The campus and the city are undeniably safer that they were during the late 1970s and early 1980s, when long-time HUPD officers recall arresting suspects weekly for armed robberies.