Please check news articles in the area for crime problems

[TravelingChris]

I decided to not put the name of the well known highly regarded university in the title that is having an active rapist problem. One student attacked in a dorm, another in an off-campus apartment(?). Other women in the area have also been attacked.

 

I just happen to know about this one because it is in my area. Other areas could very well be having their own crime sprees. Just warning other parents to check things out.

[Chris in VA]

I decided to not put the name of the well known highly regarded university in the title that is having an active rapist problem. One student attacked in a dorm, another in an off-campus apartment(?). Other women in the area have also been attacked.

 

I just happen to know about this one because it is in my area. Other areas could very well be having their own crime sprees. Just warning other parents to check things out.

 

I know what you are refering to--and I heard there was another attack today or yesterday.

 

Ds at VCU is well-aware of the crime problem. Thankfully, the campus police are well-aware, too. I feel he is pretty safe, but then, he's not doing stupid things like walking around the back alleys of a major city at night!

[TravelingChris]

Yes, Chris, I think parents need to know their children. I went to a college with very bad neighborhoods right outside the neighborhood of the college and there was both spillover crime and crime associated with leaving the neighborhood. The teaching at the college was very good and both dh and I think we got an excellent education. That said, we did not think it would be a good match for our oldest. He was going to school as a younger student and had lived a different life than we had as youngsters. We certainly didn't think that he was ready to navigate a risky environment.

Our next child could deal with it but she doesn't like the cold and Chicago is very cold.

[Nicole M]

I don't want to diminish how frightening it is to have an attacker roaming around, but really, rape happens on campuses all. the. time. Usually alcohol is involved, and usually the rapes are not reported to the police. I work on a college campus, and apparently we handle the charges "in house." I find it appalling, myself, but this is standard procedure at colleges. Looking at the crime sheets that are published by the schools will not tell you how "safe" a campus really is.

 

I know there have been threads here about this in the past, but I'll say again that alcohol use on campuses is very different from what it was when we were in school. Kids drink enormous amounts. Posters about how to recognize alcohol poisoning are all over the dorms.

 

I have a dear friend who is the director of security on our campus, and his daughter will be a freshman next year. They attended a talk together about the school last week on admitted student day. The president highlighted some really wonderful things that various students and alums have done. My friend was so thrilled, because, he said, "I only deal with the bad kids, the ones who throw up on themselves."

 

So yes, knowing your child, teaching your child to use common sense about traveling in groups, and educating your children on appropriate use of alcohol and knowing limits -- these things are very important. If you're really concerned about crimes, checking the papers in the area is a good idea, but you also might want to phone the director of security or a dean at your child's school, and ask how accurate their reports are.

[TravelingChris]

The problem in the University that I know about is a serial rapist, not a date rapist. Not to diminish date rape but for my dd, who is not into parties and very against drinking, the chances of a date rape are greatly diminished while the chances of a predatory serial raper attacking her is the same as all other women in the area if he doesn't have a certain type of person he victimizes (and the media has not specified yet whether he selects a certain type).

 

Another statistic I saw in this morning's paper was how the rate of serious crime at college campuses has exploded. The stats show how murders and serious assaults were rare in the eighties but have become increasingly common nowadays. I had known we here more about it but didn't really know that it actually is more common. I had thought that it was mostly a phenomena of increased media attention and the internet but apparantly real crime increases have occurred and they are significant.

[KnitWit]

My dd is going to a private CC and we are training her to be suspicious and wary. Not in an unhealthy way...but a SMART way. I think the worst thing a kid can do is *feel safe and sound*. I don't want her to live in fear, but I don't want her to be naive. I told her that it doesn't matter HOW secure they tell her the campus is....SHE is responsible for her own safety. It's in HER hands. She needs to think ahead and plan for everything.

[Hunter's Moon]

Western New England College in Massachusetts just have a scare. A 20 year old woman was running (off campus) and two men in a car tried to force her in but she got away. She ran right for the campus police and told them and they sent out an alert.

 

While it wasn't on campus, it still shook up the college and the community as a whole.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Do colleges still do escort programs? Dh was in ROTC in college and remembers that there was a program where guys would be on call and women could call to get an escort, say from the library to her dorm.

[MBM]

Do colleges still do escort programs? Dh was in ROTC in college and remembers that there was a program where guys would be on call and women could call to get an escort, say from the library to her dorm.

 

At U of Chicago's Hyde Park campus, the police will escort students on campus to their destination. The officers drive very slowly near the student as s/he walks.

 

Safety Resources at U of C:

http://www.uchicago.edu/safety/resources.shtml

 

Hyde Park is a very dangerous area, IMO. We lived there, and murders, though rare, did occur. Some were gruesome. We had a double murder a few houses away from us that appeared random and involved bludgeoning an elderly man and his adult son to death. A friend of mine who teaches there will not walk the six blocks from her home to her office because she fears being attacked.

 

U of C crime daily reports:

http://www.uchicago.edu/safety/reports/daily/

 

Northwestern U in Evanston has its fair share of crime as well, usually robberies, sometimes armed, and occasionally during the day. My son had fencing lessons there for about a year, and I was anxious just walking the one block from the parking lot to the gym because it was dark and unobserved. My daughter went to school there, and her house was broken into while she was alone in the back yard. Thankfully, the man ran away when she entered the house.

 

Northwestern Crime Alerts:

http://www.northwestern.edu/up/alerts/alerts.html

 

Northwestern Crime Map:

http://www.dailynorthwestern.com/multimedia/interactive-evanston-crime-map-april-23-1.2237915

 

You should absolutely be vigilant. My roommate from college was murdered by a drug addict while she was at grad school in NYC.

Edited April 26, 2010 by MBM
deleted a word

[Laurie4b]

My dd is going to a private CC and we are training her to be suspicious and wary. Not in an unhealthy way...but a SMART way. I think the worst thing a kid can do is *feel safe and sound*. I don't want her to live in fear, but I don't want her to be naive. I told her that it doesn't matter HOW secure they tell her the campus is....SHE is responsible for her own safety. It's in HER hands. She needs to think ahead and plan for everything.

 

Very wise words.