Report shows colleges relatively safe

A recent compilation of crime statistics from college campuses across the country by the U.S. Department of Education suggests that the average student is safer than the average citizen, but experts warn the data is unreliable.

The department broke individual crime categories into per-student statistics and concluded that in most cases the occurrence of crime on campus was much lower than that for the nation.

For instance, based on reported statistics from 1997, 1998 and 1999, the national rate of sex offenses was 14.8 per 100,000 students while the overall national rate was 32.7 per 100,000 people.

Though these numbers seem to speak well of college campus safety, experts argue the statistics may be unsound and that the short-term study may be overvalued.

"The problem is the way [the department] calculated the rates," said Daniel Carter, vice president of Safety on Campus — a non-profit organization in King of Prussia, PA, that acts as a campus crime watch dog and also provides victim assistance.

Carter noted that the overall national crime rates and the national campus crime rates are not comparable because of a population variable. While the national population is fairly static, a typical university's population decreases when students with off-campus residences leave. Many students are not on campus all the time, but the crime rate is reduced because they are counted anyway.

"Because not every student lives on campus, this is actually a much smaller pool of people," Carter said.

University Public Safety Crime Prevention Specialist Barry Weiser said Princeton diligently tries to uphold its high standard of safety and ranks well among its peer schools.

"We have the lowest crime rate in the Ivy League and one of the lowest in New Jersey," Weiser said. "But it doesn't mean that we won't stay proactive."

This year, Weiser said, the University established three new programs to fight and prevent crime.

Adopt-A-PUPS is designed to allow public safety officers to work closely with the students. Six officers are assigned to each of the residential colleges and the Graduate College, where they create a bulletin board, meet with RAs and make themselves available to the students.

Rape Aggression Defense training runs weekly and the Bicycle Registration System educates students on safe riding and theft prevention.

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Overall, the education department report — based on 6,300 public and private, two-year and four-year universities — shows a rise in some categories of campus crimes and a decrease in others. Between 1998 and 1999, the number of sex offenses rose almost six percent, the number of drug arrests rose 5.8 percent, the number of alcohol arrests rose 0.4 percent and the number of burglaries, motor-vehicle thefts and robberies grew as well.

At the same time, the number of incidents of aggravated assault fell two percent, murders fell from 24 in 1998 to 11 in 1999 and the number of arrests for violation of weapons laws declined.

Carter warned not to draw any general conclusions from the education department report because of the short time span it covers. He insisted the experts must wait a few more years before they can make well-informed observations.

Carter said that students can protect themselves by following some common sense measures. He urged students to lock their doors, not to walk anywhere at night and to refrain from drinking.

"Most campus crimes would be prevented with these three precautions," he said. "Common sense is the best way."

Unfortunately, even though Princeton has an open campus, many students have an unrealistic sense of safety.

"Being in a campus community, it does not occur to me to take precautions," said Annika Ashton '04. "Consciously, I know shouldn't feel this way, but I do," she added. "I would not walk around at four o'clock in the morning anywhere except here."

Carter said to fight crime, universities should allocate adequate resources for training of and equipment for campus security officers. He added that colleges should install electronic card-swipe entry ways — a system similar to Princeton's prox system — along with cameras on external doors, and they can discourage student drinking by sponsoring an alcohol education initiative. Also, the university public safety office should be "honest and forthright" about all incidents on campus.