Violent crime has strangled cities across the country in recent years, with reports showing that criminal incidents are creeping closer to some college campuses in recent days, raising fears among some students and parents about how strengthen personal security.
“We all want … students to be able to live on campus to spread their wings away from home, but it is the partnership and good communication between university security officials, students and parents that will ultimately provide the best security platform in and around a particular school setting,” Robert McDonald, a former Secret Service agent and University of New Haven criminal justice expert, told Fox News Digital.
Violent crime erupted across the country in 2020, with murders up nearly 30% compared with the previous year, according to FBI data, marking the largest single-year increase in murders since the agency began tracking crime. crimes. The crime rate exploded at a time when society was upended by lockdown orders stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, calls to defund police departments reverberated across the country, including on college campuses, and the repeated nights of protests and riots following the murder of George Floyd. in Minneapolis.
Nearly two years later, many cities are still grappling with the recent crime trend, which includes higher-than-usual rates of murder, carjacking, mugging and other crimes.
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Violent crime has strangled cities across the country in recent years, with reports showing that criminal incidents are getting closer to some college campuses.
(Elina Shirazi)
Historically, college campuses have primarily dealt with crimes such as theft and sexual assault, data from the National Center for Education Statistics shows. But in just the past few weeks, headlines across the country have shown brutal campus shootings and murders, rape threats, dormitory break-ins and armed robberies creeping ever closer to campus.
New York University students are reporting they are on high alert after a series of incidents in which intruders evaded security and entered dormitories, including one case in which an intruder allegedly saw a student sleeping.
“I almost feel safer not living in a dorm,” Ishi Gupta, a 21-year-old senior, told the New York Post. “New York University students are paying a lot of tuition and dormitories are very expensive, and not feeling safe in them is unacceptable.”
New York University students report being on high alert after a series of incidents in which intruders evaded security and entered dormitories.
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While the students of the washington university The alarm was recently raised about how a handful of registered sex offenders live near the Seattle campus, with students reporting arming themselves with pepper spray.
In even more tragic incidents, a community in Idaho is in mourning after four University of Idaho students were found fatally stabbed to death in an off-campus home. And in Virginia, the University of Virginia campus is dealing with a devastating shooting that left three high school football players dead, another player wounded and another student wounded.
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Flowers are displayed at a makeshift memorial at the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho, on November 21, 2022, for four of its students who were killed on November 13.
(Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)
McDonald said that in addition to students always having a firm understanding of their surroundings while living on college campuses, they need to “go back to basics” and communicate with family and friends about where and when they go out to best protect themselves. .
“You need to go back to basics with regard to communicating with family and friends about where students are going, who they are going with, and letting someone know when they leave one place and when they arrive at the next place or home,” McDonald told Fox. News Digital “Students sometimes don’t like to feel like they need to report to anyone, but someone with knowledge of their locations and travel plans can help them with general safety concerns. Plus, moving around with a friend or in a group setting will also contribute to a safer environment than going out alone.”
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Many schools across the country, especially elementary and high schools, increased security measures over the summer following the tragic shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 students and two teachers dead. At the college level, some school leaders have announced a greater presence of police and public safety officers on campuses to combat crime, including at the University of Idaho and Johns Hopkins.
At the college level, some school leaders have announced a greater presence of police and public safety officers on campuses to combat crime, including at the University of Idaho and Johns Hopkins.
(JHU Sheridan/Gado Libraries/Getty Images)
“In response to these crimes, we immediately modified our public safety deployment to provide a greater presence and focus on the areas that have been most affected by these incidents… These officers will patrol both by vehicle and on foot 24 hours a day day, 7 days a week.” Johns Hopkins University’s vice president for public safety wrote in a message to the school community last month after a “disturbing rise in serious violent crime,” including a spate of armed robberies.
Parents have also increasingly sounded the alarm in recent days about crime creeping ever closer to campuses, including at Temple University in Philadelphia, where parents say crime has been a problem for years. . A group of parents from the school even banded together earlier this year to hire private security to better protect the campus following the murder of a student and other crimes near campus.
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“As a parent of a student at Temple University, it’s sad to say, but you almost expect something bad to happen, something very negative to happen to your student here. I did,” a parent of a Temple student told WPVI. earlier this month. .
Parents have also increasingly sounded the alarm in recent days about crimes creeping ever closer to campuses, including at Temple University in Philadelphia.
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McDonald reiterated the importance of communication by explaining how parents can play a role in keeping their children safe while away from home.
“Good communication and discussion between parents and students can allow parents to learn about student locations, and conversely, parents can get an idea of what their children are participating in and the places they frequent. Any sharing of information it can only increase the level of security experienced, and in the event something bad happens, help law enforcement with locations for research and development of timelines surrounding student movements,” he said.
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“Parents should also talk with their college students on a regular basis to make sure students feel safe, aren’t experiencing any issues with bullies or bullies, and to get a sense of what students are experiencing at school.”
