<p>I am from a major city and am a current senior (the administrators can verify privately). My girlfriend got mugged two weeks ago on campus (with roughly 30 cameras/km^2) and thus we were advised to call campus security + vans to get home from relatively safe areas recently. Over the last three years I have been here, the campus security has been unreliable/useless (as published in their daily campus security bulletins, which highlight their failures in capturing anyone, my roommate just had his wallet stolen from the gym and the thief has not been pursued, monitored, recorded, or caught). </p>
<p>If you are remotely well-to-do and wish to go to a nice, safe school, stay out of Baltimore. There are nice people here, but there is also the remaining 90% of Baltimore. You will get robbed and the school isn't going to help you get home. I have phone records which I don't mind sharing with the administrators logging 7 calls over the last 56 minutes with the JHU Blue Jay Security Vans which resulted in us walking home. Any degree of security presented during the tours is a farce. </p>
<p>Don't take my word for itask your administrators who will verify my identity. Just a foreword from a disgruntled senior at a school that wastes millions of tuition dollars replacing asphalt with cobblestone.</p>
<p>The Op’s last statement alleging the JHU uses tuition dollars to replace asphalt with cobblestone is a baseless fabrication (any such work is paid with funds from donors who donated money for that purpose). That prevarication makes me suspect of the claims made about security, which are contrary to my observations and experience.</p>
<p>It sounds like nothing more than a rant from a disgruntled person who hopes to harm the Universty by scaring away prospective students. By reputation, JHU has one of the finest campus security forces around. And yes, there are bad people in Baltimore (as in many cities, unfortunately) but to claim that 90% of the residents are bad is flat out false, ridiculous, and insulting to both the city and the intelligence of the reader. Considering the demographics of the city, it is probably a racist rant as well.</p>
<p>This is the Hopkins Crime Prevention website for information, self defense classes, safety tips on how to stay safe in any town or city in the world, but also specific things you can do on the JHU campus or the surrounding areas (regarding security personnel, transportation, blue light system on campus, etc):</p>
<p>Always LOCK UP your wallets and other valuables if they are not in your possession when using the gym. Use locks on lockers in the locker room. I know that you want to trust all of your friends and other students, but it is really inconvenient to have to get new student ID cards, etc. </p>
<p>Do not walk alone at 2 AM or 3 AM in the dark. The campus is beautiful and everyone perceives it to be a very safe place, but use common sense and walk in groups, in well lit areas in the middle of the night when the shuttles are not traveling as frequently around campus. OR put the TAXI number in your cell phone and call a taxi service. OR call for transportation well ahead of the time you will need it. Don’t expect to call for the shuttle van to pick you up within minutes. They may be transporting other students from parties. Give them more time on rainy nights or really cold nights when more people will need their service. That’s why it is good to have back up transportation plans. </p>
<p>All of this is common sense and is given to all students during Freshmen Orientation and to Parents during Parent Orientation. But it is good for seniors and other students to get a refresher course on safety, as well. </p>
<p>Use heightened awareness in Baltimore. Every city has crime, yes, but Baltimore statistically has much higher rates of petty crime, violent crime, assaults, and robbery than many other major cities. Almost everyday I get an email detailing the events of a mugging with subsequent cell phone stolen, and this is always near main campus or the hospital. Don’t walk around with your cell phone out and texting while walking. Plan your path accordingly before you walk somewhere at night, sticking to well lit areas and places with no confinement. Have your keys ready to go if you drove before you walk up to a car. Avoid carrying any bags that look like they might have computers. </p>
<p>Also, why would you simply not put a lock on your locker at the gym? It doesn’t matter where you go to school, I bet Yale, Harvard, Stanford, and Princeton have theft on their campuses as well–lowlifes are everywhere.</p>
<p>^Good advice. Smartphones make students an easy mark for students. And not just in Baltimore. Baltimore does have more than its share of problems but, believe it or not, there are many places in this country that are much worse (such as Detroit, St. Louis, Campden, Newark, etc.)</p>
<p>Where did you find the statistics on “Baltimore statistically has much higher rates of petty crime, violent crime, assaults, and robbery than many other major cities”<br>
I disagree. I don’t think Baltimore is statistically more dangerous than Washington DC, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, or hundreds of other cities around the USA. Crime stats are easy to look up. </p>
<p>And, even if you find that Los Angeles, for example has a higher murder rate than say, Philadelphia or Nashville or Atlanta, you have to ask yourself WHICH PART of Los Angeles and will that student spend any time in that high crime rate area of that city? </p>
<p>Baltimore, like Washington DC and Los Angeles, and New York and Miami has its share of absolutely breathtaking areas, business areas, tourist areas and a range of neighborhoods. </p>
<p>Everyone should do due diligence on which neighborhoods to avoid. Hopkins and many universities offer safety awareness and walks around the city to students to give them a feel of each neighborhood. </p>
<p>There is a website that lists the most crimes on college campus’ and it lists everything from petty theft to rape and murder. If you really want to know the gory details of each college, you can google for that information. You will be shocked how many crimes are committed at seemingly perceived “safe” schools in seemingly “safe” cities and neighborhoods. </p>
<p>Many sororities across the country offer Women’s self defense classes and other sessions about the dangers of frat parties and drugs/violence on campus. Sometimes the worst experience a woman will ever have to deal with is the frat boy down the street who slipped something in her drink. </p>
<p>Danger is everywhere. Don’t let anyone ‘scare’ or intimidate you out of finding the right school. Maybe that is their only weapon to keep the odds in their favor.</p>
<p>Baltimore has a higher violent crime rate per capita than Philly and is MUCH WORSE when it comes to violent crime than NYC. It is true, much of the violence and crime are associated with hot pockets in Bmore, but let’s not pretend like it doesn’t spill over to almost every part of the city: </p>
<p>Like I said, use common sense and heightened awareness when in Bmore. Crime shouldn’t deter anyone from attending Hopkins, but you have to be an idiot to think that Bmore is just like any other major city where colleges are located. It isn’t.</p>
<p>I can cite random articles like a shooting on Penn’s campus, a rape IN Harvard yard, a killing in a Yale lab, a robbery in Duke gardens all in the last year. These situations are not unique to Hopkins. Most top colleges (save Stanford, Cornell, and Dartmouth) are located in dangerous cities.</p>
<p>So according to that Murder Rate article you pulled up, St. Louis, MO is ranked 5th. Are you on the Washington University St Louis (WUSTL) threads ranting off murder stats, too? It seems you are really trying to zero in on ONE university. Obviously, you have a beef with Baltimore or maybe Hopkins. </p>
<p>If you google murders at universities, you’ll come up with the recent murders at: University of Michigan, University Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Boston University, Howard University, Eastern Michigan, Wayne State, Southern University, etc
Are you on all of those threads warning students about the dangers of living in those areas? </p>
<p>NBC did research of Rapes on Campus’ and focused on University of Virginia, College of William and Mary, and Georgetown. Are you on those threads warning students not to attend those universities, as well? </p>
<p>There is crime everywhere.<br>
There is also safety everywhere.</p>
<p>It is all about making good choices, being aware of your environment and taking advantage of preventative and other services available to keep the negative things from happening in your personal life. You can’t change the world, but you can change your personal environment and not live in fear by being pro-active.</p>
<p>Even if you think Charles Village in the vicinity of the campus is unsafe, you have to consider the comparable schools that a student going to JHU might otherwise attend. Columbia, Chicago, Brown and Penn are all in bad neighborhoods as well. Others are close enough to tough communities that opportunistic criminals are naturally going to take advantage of students. Berkeley, Yale, MIT, Northwestern and Harvard definitely fall into this category. So unless you have a slot at Stanford / Princeton or go off to Cornell, Williams or Dartmouth, you are going to face urban crime statistics. Such is life.</p>
<p>On a micro level though, if your wallet was stolen in the gym, it likely got ripped off by a student given the gym is not open to the public (I caught a student stealing my jacket, “dude, it was just like sitting here, I thought someone didn’t want it”). That is not really the kind of violent crime that any university can police. It is just common sense not to leave valuables unattended. No case officer would waste time trying to recover it.</p>