Two murders, 11 rapes, 165 robberies, 348 aggravated assaults. There were 526 violent crimes in Cambridge last year alone.

About 10 times a week, every 17 hours, violence strikes the city.

For the most part, it is a silent disease. Since the rampant drug-related violence of the '80s is gone, what remains is largely hidden from public view.

Now Cambridge's violence happens behind closed apartment doors and in dark alleys, long after citizens have gone to bed.

But hearing the word around town, one would never guess that crime is half what it was 20 years ago.

This is because the Cambridge Police Department (CPD) is, in a way, a victim of its own success. Because of increased publicity and reporting levels, each time violence becomes public these days--as it did six weeks ago in a series of bizarre armed pack robberies involving two Harvard students--it makes big news.

"There's always a problem," says Frank Pasquarello, the CPD spokesperson. "No matter where you go, there will always be crime."

The good news is that violent crime in Cambridge fell 13 percent last year. Reported incidents of rape fell 51 percent; robberies fell by 21 percent.