Among the seven cities that comprise Hampton Roads, Suffolk ranks as the third safest when it comes to exposure to violent crime. That’s according to a report released earlier this week by the Virginia State Police, who compared crime statistics from all of Virginia’s cities, towns and counties to develop a picture of crime in Virginia.

Sometimes, when we get caught up in the daily headlines or the video on the evening news, it’s hard to recognize just how relatively free Suffolk is of violent crime. It’s the missing-the-forest-for-the-trees scenario. We focus on a particular crime for a few days, and then move on to another one until it just seems as if there’s a long string of crimes that goes back as long as our recent memory.

The average day that passes without violent crime of note never sticks out in our minds and becomes overshadowed by the rarer bad news. That’s human nature, not to mention the nature of the news business.

But it’s important to acknowledge the hard work being done by Suffolk’s law enforcement and criminal justice community to make the city a safer place for law-abiding citizens to live. Suffolk’s violent crime rate of 303 incidents per 100,000 citizens is largely a function of the effort made to disrupt the activities of violent street gangs, according to law enforcement officials.

In 2006, the police department inaugurated its first Neighborhood Enforcement Team, whose explicit purpose is to stem the tide of gang-related crime. The NET concept was expanded in 2009 and 2010, and the teams have been effective in identifying gang members within the city, connecting them to the crimes they have committed and getting court convictions for those crimes.

Street gangs still have not been eliminated in Suffolk, but the combined work of the police department and the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office has put those gangs on notice that they will not be allowed to run rampant here. They will not be allowed a reign of terror in Suffolk.

Closely tied to the work to eradicate the criminal influence of gangs in Suffolk is also the low rate of property crime, by which measure Suffolk ranks second best in Hampton Roads. Here, too, the police department, prosecutors and court officials deserve high praise for the message they’re sending potential criminals: We may occasionally find ourselves to be victims of crimes, but we will not allow our city to be victimized by it; we will fight back.