Campus Safety Questions
In building a college list, parents may have a lot of campus safety questions. And in this country, that is not surprising. The news seems full of bad news coming from college campuses (even when they are relatively safe, overall). And parents worry that their kids will not be the victims of crime. But sometimes it’s hard to separate the impressions one receives from the media (which may not reflect the actual risks on campus) from the facts and crime statistics.
Similarly, how does one separate information about crimes committed on campus (which may be handled by the campus police) versus crimes committed in the vicinity of the campus (which are handled by local police, even if college students are involved)?
What is Campus Safety?
The idea of “safety” is difficult to define. It’s a feeling. It is certainly related to the facts and statistics about crimes, accidents, and other risks. But these risks that all parents worry about are not equivalent. Either in terms of the lethality or violence involved or in their origins. For example, some of the biggest risks may not come from external forces (criminals or rapists coming on campus) but are, instead, a result of student misbehavior (e.g., alcohol abuse at a frat house that leads to a fall and serious injury, or instances of sexual assault perpetrated by other students).
As we think about safety on campus, we have to think about all the sorts of risks our students might face on campus. And think clearly about whether those risks are ones that the student can take steps to avoid (e.g., by moderating alcohol consumption and being more aware of the possibility of unwanted sexual advances). Ones that are more random and outside a student’s control (a hurricane flooding campus, a car accident, or–heaven forfend–a mass shooting).
Where Can I Get Statistics on Campus Safety?
The government requires campuses to gather data about crimes on campus. One way to access this data is on the “College Navigator” website of the National Center for Education Statistics. Just type in the name of the college you want to investigate and scroll down to the “Campus Security and Safety” tab. And you’ll see 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 stats for any college.
One criticism of these 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 they may invite you to visit the office of the campus police. If you have particular concerns you’d like to address. You can also try to talk to local residents about their impressions of safety in the community. And 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 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 campuses 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. As I mention in the video below (the audio is pretty bad, for which I apologize), these systems were constructed before the ubiquity of the cell phone. These systems usually still work (where they have not been removed), and they often are still featured on campus tours.
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, all campus buildings may be unlocked at all hours.
In this video below, I explain this phenomenon while showing viewers around the Bowdoin College science building. It’s not the best quality video, either, but it gives you a distinct impression that some campuses feel relatively safe and open while others feel more like a minimum-security prison.
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–and as someone who has worked with gazillions of young people over a long career in education. I tend to worry about some of the simpler, more obvious risks that pretty much every student may be expected to at least experiment with while in college: alcohol, marijuana, and other drugs. Because young people are impaired while on these substances (their protestations to the contrary). I thought it important to consider how easy it is to walk from place to place around campus while impaired.
Big busy streets with speeding cars seemed more risky to me than small, tree-lined lanes with slow-moving traffic. And the proximity of campus buildings to one another seemed better than ones where a car might be required to head to a bar or off-campus parties. I wanted my boys to be able to walk home (with or without the support of a sober friend) without having to get behind the wheel.
Why Is Campus Safety Important?
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 (indeed, there have been examples of outrageously poor policing by some campus cops).
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.
Mark Montgomery
Montgomery Educational Consulting
