Campus Safety Questions

Where Can I Get Statistics on Campus Safety? 

The Clery Act requires colleges and universities to disseminate a public annual security report that must include statistics of campus crime for the preceding three calendar years, plus details about efforts taken to improve campus safety.  

The best tool for finding the most recent data on individual school campus safety is from the Department of Education. Its Campus Safety and Security Data Analysis Cutting Tool is put together by the Office of Postsecondary Education. When searching for an individual college, you’ll be presented with three years of data reported by the college, broken down into different kinds of crimes and where they took place (on campus generally, or in the campus residences). As you’ll see, liquor law violations tend to dominate the list for any college. But, note that rape, burglary, stalking and other very serious offenses are also reported separately. 

You can also compare up to four colleges at the same time. Here’s 2023 data comparing some well-known Boston-area universities: Northeastern, Boston University, Harvard, and MIT. 

Selected Criminal Offenses and Disciplinary Actions 

 Source: US Department of Education Campus Safety and Security Data Analysis Cutting Tool. 

Individual college data can also be found on the “College Navigator” website of the National Center for Education Statistics by typing in the college name and scrolling down to the “Campus Security and Safety” tab. However, I have found this data to not be updated as frequently and you’re unable to do a side-by-side college comparison. 

Individual College Data is Only as Good as the Method of Reporting

One criticism of this reported crime data is that reporting is inconsistent from one college to the next. While the government provides guidelines and universities are expected to follow those guidelines. Reasonable people may question the accuracy of the data from school to school and from year to year. Some colleges may seem to have very high rates of theft and burglary, for example. But the location of the school (in a city, in a rural town) may help to explain those differences rather than the laxity of the campus police. 

Similarly, some colleges seem to have higher incidences of sex-related crimes. Those universities with higher rates of sex crimes sometimes claim that they are actually better at encouraging victims of such crimes to come forward than may be the case on other campuses. It’s hard to tell, sometimes, what the statistics really tell us about campus safety. And it can still be difficult to compare one campus against another. 

Nonetheless, the statistics are helpful to families as they investigate campus safety as they are building their college lists. 

What Campus Safety Questions Can I Ask? 

It’s perfectly okay to ask about campus safety while on a college tour. The admissions staff is generally well-positioned to answer your inquiries on this topic. They should be able to refer you to statistics and other information and may invite you to visit the office of the campus police if you have concerns you’d like addressed. You can also try to talk to local residents about their impressions of safety in the community. The local police department can be another source of information (crimes that do not take place on campus will not appear in the government statistics reported on College Navigator). 

However, it is less helpful to ask current students about the details of campus safety. You can certainly ask about their own experiences (do you feel comfortable walking around campus after dark, or do you feel safe in your campus residence?). They might be able to share their own impressions of how well the campus is able to provide information to students about safety issues. But students–including tour guides–are generally not fully aware of all safety systems, university policies, disciplinary procedures, or aggregate crime statistics. 

CRIME 

• Does campus feel safe to you? 

• Is the school monitored in real time, 24/7 by video cameras? Or is the video merely checked after there has been a problem? 

• Are there emergency call boxes throughout campus? (More on these in a moment) 

• Does the school offer a campus safety escort service? If so, is it staffed with officers or students or both? 

• Does the campus police use a cell phone alert system to communicate imminent risks to students? 

• Does the school use electronic-access card keys to monitor the entry and exit of campus buildings? 

• Are there redundant forms of security, like cameras, call buttons and rotating patrols? 

• Does the school offer self-defense classes? 

• Do you feel safe walking alone across campus at night? If not, what do you do to get around campus at night? 

ALCOHOL AND DRUGS 

• Is there a well-defined alcohol and drug policy? How vigorously is it enforced? 

• Are residential staffers trained to spot abuse and offer help? 

• Does the college inform you of arrests and hospitalizations related to drugs and alcohol? 

• How many students are in fraternities and sororities? (They tend to drink more heavily.) 

• How many students are involved in community service? (They tend to drink less.) 

FIRE 

• Are there smoke and carbon monoxide detectors? 

• Are there sprinklers and fire extinguishers? Are there two exits? Do the windows open? 

• Are there regular fire drills? 

• Does the furnace get annual maintenance, and is the electrical system up to date? 

Campus Safety and Blue Light Call Boxes 

Often when touring colleges you’ll see a network of call boxes or emergency buttons, often with blue lights on them. Campus tour guides may actually point them out while on the tour and mention how quickly campus police will arrive when one of those buttons is pushed. This is because this button will immediate connect the caller with emergency services – likely either campus security or local police. At USC, its blue phones connect callers with the school’s 24-hour Department of Public Safety. 

Campus Safety Questions and School Location 

One of the biggest differentiators in campus safety has nothing to do with the quality of policing or the complexity of campus policies. Rather, the location of the school can tell us a lot more about the relative safety of the campus than anything else. These days, most students seem to want to attend college in a city. But higher population density in urban areas is correlated with criminality (not to mention traffic accidents, which remain a significant risk on many campuses). 

On urban campuses, one is likely to find a high degree of security. For example, at the University of Pennsylvania or New York University, it is impossible for a casual visitor to visit any building without proper permissions and concomitant identification cards. However, on campuses located in small towns or rural areas away from major population centers, some campus buildings may be unlocked. 

So, if safety is a primary concern, you may want to consider the location of the campus itself. 

Campus Safety, Alcohol and Drug Use, and Walkability 

As a parent, I tend to worry about some of the simpler, more obvious risks that many students will experiment with while in college: alcohol, marijuana, and other drugs. Because young people are impaired while on these substances (their protestations to the contrary), it’s important to consider how easy it is to walk from place to place around campus while in this state. 

Big busy streets with speeding cars is a riskier environment than small, tree-lined lanes with slow-moving traffic. And the proximity of campus buildings to one another is better than a school where a car might be required to head to a bar or off-campus parties.  

Why Is Campus Safety Important in Choosing a College? 

Campus safety is an important consideration in selecting a college. You want to have an understanding of the relative risks involved in choosing a particular campus. And statistics give us an indication of what sorts of risks one might encounter. However, keep in mind that the statistics do not necessarily tell the whole story and that environmental and circumstantial factors (e.g., the location of the campus) may have a bigger impact on campus safety than school policies or the size of the campus police force. 

As you think about campus safety, you’ll have to trade off these considerations with other ones, including the quality of the academic programs, the availability of certain activities or amenities, and other preferences and priorities. 

Whatever campus you choose, it’s important to think carefully about the risks one might encounter while at university and to build awareness about how to minimize those risks for you as an individual student. Understanding the risks is the first step in reducing them for yourself. 

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Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in June 2023 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.