LAW AND ORDER

I APPLAUD YOUR ARTICLE ATTRIBUTING some of the drop in reported crime to more effective policing [CRIME, Jan. 15], but we must not gloss over the potentially dangerous differences in the approaches used in various cities. Creative problem solving is only half of what is required to ensure public safety. Police departments must also engage the community as full-fledged partners in identifying, prioritizing and solving problems--or run the serious risk of increasing the threat of civil unrest. Involving the community each step of the way in neighborhood-based problem-solving efforts is indeed a slower process, but then so is democracy. BONNIE BUCQUEROUX, Executive Director Michigan Victim Alliance Mason, Michigan

THE WORD CRIME IS A EUPHEMISM WHEN one considers what it includes today: a viciousness of mind and heart that ends the promising lives of babies, replaces fists with exploding bullets and kills for a pair of sneakers. Congratulations, naturally, to any police force that can bring down the number of violent crimes that occur. But the fact that fewer crimes are happening in a community should not overshadow the true tragedy: that these crimes occur at all. DANIEL CRONIN New York City Via E-mail

HOW MANY NEW LOCKS, ANTI-AUTO-THEFT devices and increased insurance premiums are we to endure while we are winning "the war on crime''? I fear the law and order of today, as well as our so-called justice system. I would prefer justice and punishment a la Singapore. JOACHIM H. BARZ Mesa, Arizona

EDUCATORS WHO WORK IN CORRECTIONal institutions are reaching beyond the walls and making a major difference in the lives of men and women who are being educated while incarcerated. What happens to offenders when they are in prison will eventually contribute to an increase or decrease in crime once they are again on the outside. Fortunately, the correctional educators are succeeding. Education is the ultimate weapon against crime, and the public and politicians must embrace this. ERROL CRAIG SULL, President Correctional Education Co. Buffalo, New York

YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING! TO SAY WE are winning the war against crime because some cities dropped their violent-crime rates by a few cases is wrong. I'll agree with you the day I open the morning paper and don't see the headline 14 DEAD IN RESTAURANT MASSACRE. DAVID KEREM Hollywood, Florida

THE NEXT WAVE?

YOUR ARTICLE ON JUVENILE CRIME, "NOW for the Bad News: A Teenage Time Bomb" [CRIME, Jan. 15], should have been titled "A Teenage Time Bomb Explodes," because the present is just a shadow of what lies ahead. According to a recent poll, more than 12% of today's teenagers (and 40% of those in high-crime neighborhoods) carry a weapon for protection. Unlike post-Vietnam criminals, who feared prison, police and peers and took care to avoid arrest and notoriety, this new teenage horde from hell kills, maims and terrorizes merely to become known or even sometimes for no reason at all. These teens have no fear of dying and no concept of living. DANIEL R. COBURN Morristown, New Jersey

ALL TALK AND NO BUDGET

WHEN ARE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE GOING to figure things out and make Congress and the President balance the budget [NATION, Jan. 15], not seven years or 70 years from now but today? The government is writing bad checks our children will have to pay. I think people just don't know; I can't believe they don't care. We need to fix this, end the confiscatory taxes and take our country back! BRIAN K. KEGERREIS Fort Collins, Colorado

IF THE POLITICIANS WERE SINCERE ABOUT trying to balance the budget, they would cut spending 10% across the board based on 1995 spending levels. As any good manager who has worked with a budget knows, one can usually find a 10% reduction without doing harm to one's overall objectives. Then this lower spending level, with no tax cut, would be held until the deficit reached a certain percentage of the gnp. If there is anyone who truly believes the budget will be balanced in seven years as a result of what is now taking place in Washington, I would like to talk to that person about my oceanfront property in Arizona. RONALD L. GRONEWOLD Pipestone, Minnesota

CENSORS OF CYBERSPACE

I COMPLETELY AGREE WITH JOHN PERRY Barlow's piece, ''Thinking Locally, Acting Globally'' [ESSAY, Jan. 15], criticizing online censorship. CompuServe's decision to censor speech has deprived millions of users. Around the world, homosexuals rely on the banned newsgroups for support and guidance. Many of the other newsgroups discuss adult subjects in a candid manner. In the information age, censorship is not what is required; common sense is. People need to know what is on the Internet and accept its presence. If Germany can censor CompuServe, what will protect other online service providers from facing similar restrictions? MARTY R. PAZ Las Vegas

I AM SICK OF READING LAME DEFENSES OF Internet pornography under the feeble guise of the free exchange of information. Pornography is not information. It is an insidious, infectious disease. Those who value the Internet's potential for building the global community should be at the spearhead of campaigns to defend the Net from antisocial perverts rather than burying their heads in the sand of spineless, amoral political correctness. Societies have always tried to legislate against behavior that threatens vulnerable groups of innocent people. Only criminals object to such laws. ALISTAIR MCNAUGHT Winchester, England

AS THE SAYING GOES, FREEDOM OF THE press belongs to the man who owns one. The Internet is our press. And it is the readers who decide what to censor. JOE ORAWCZYK Yermo, California

I OBJECT TO BARLOW'S VIEWS. IT'S NOT so simple as freedom here, authoritarianism there. Every kind of communication or information can be used in a manipulative way, but at least in most cases you know who is calling the tune. What troubles me about the Internet is not the existence of sexually explicit newsgroups, but that our brave new social space shields the vicious from having to stand up for what they are saying and be held responsible for it. CLAUDIUS KLEIN Berlin I AM AGAINST CENSORSHIP, BUT THERE has to be regulation to protect the weaker elements of our society. Placing freedom of smut over freedom from sexual exploitation doesn't make sense. Freedom of expression also applies to those people who voice their opinion about regulation of the Internet and favor such control. Barlow's comments about "trivial struggles" pertaining to such matters as "sexually misused hamsters" and intercourse with children and animals are misplaced in arguments about freedom of expression. WILFRIED JOHNSON Schwetzingen, Germany

NO SMOKING

IN YOUR REPORT ON THE GATHERING OF conservatives in Miami over the New Year's weekend [POLITICS, Jan. 8], you included a quote from me, to the effect that I had smoked when I was pregnant, as an example of the "outlaw spirit" that prevailed during the weekend. In fact I declared just the opposite: "Of course, I never smoked when I was pregnant." This is an outrage. You announced to the world that I cavalierly exposed my five children to the harmful effects of tobacco while I carried each in my womb. I am disappointed by such sloppy and unprofessional reporting. FRANCES P. (MRS. G. GORDON) LIDDY Fort Washington, Maryland

WHERE'S THE BOTTOM LINE?

AS A RESULT OF THE SUCCESS OF THE movie Waiting to Exhale, Jack E. White is concerned that there will be more "slick Hollywood trash'' films made from books about African Americans [DIVIDING LINE, Jan. 15]. This is an indication that White has not grasped a few bottom-line realities in the motion-picture industry. Waiting to Exhale is about money, and Hollywood is a bottom-line town. That is why box-office receipts are kept track of so closely. When African-American talents such as Loretta Devine, Lela Rochon, director Forest Whitaker and author Terry McMillan become common household names like Madonna, Demi Moore, Ron Howard and Michael Crichton, then Hollywood will, I hope, produce more films that explore African-American life. Yes, ultimately some of these movies will be slick Hollywood trash. But only then will African Americans as a group have arrived--when we can create Hollywood "trash" that affects the bottom line. BRONWYN O. BROCKETT New York City

THERE IS NOTHING TRASHY, FLASHY OR degrading about Waiting to Exhale. If there were, black women around the country would have something other than praises to sing about it. Considering how far we've come as a people, I'd prefer on occasion seeing my own kind being "trashy,'' being true, being human, to never seeing myself at all. CYMANTHA M. GUEST Denver

CELEBRITIES GONE TO POT

MAYBE IF WE SAW OUR GLAMOROUS heroes exposed as their real and natural selves more often, as in your photos of flabby film stars [CHRONICLES, Jan. 15], we would not be deluded into thinking that everyone is perfect, and we would be ready to live with our own warts more easily. But I will still cross any street any day to see Smilin' Jack Nicholson wearing anything--even his birthday suit! DARLENE MACK Lincoln City, Oregon