Colleges that are in the safest and most dangerous US cities

Parents Social Lounge
1

<p>Safest:

  1. Newton, Mass. (where Boston College is)
    I don’t know if any colleges are in the below cities:
  2. Clarkstown, NY
    3.; Amherst, NY
  3. Mission Viejo, CA
    5.Brick Township, NJ. </p>

<p>Most dangerous:</p>

<li><p>Camden, New Jersey</p></li>
<li><p>Detroit, MI</p></li>
<li><p>St. Louis, MO,</p></li>
<li><p>Flint, MI </p></li>
<li><p>Richmond, VA.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Anyone know how St. Louis’ crime rate affects Washington U?</p>

<p>Info was taken from a press release that’s online (and is an effort to sell their full report).
“The Morgan Quitno Safest City Award is based on a city’s rate for six basic crime categories: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and motor vehicle theft. All cities of 75,000+ populations that reported crime data to the FBI for the six crime categories were included in the rankings. In this year’s survey, 369 cities were considered for the award. Final 2004 statistics, released by the FBI on October 17, 2005, were used to determine the rankings.”</p>

2

<p>Unfortunately, crime occurs even in "safe" environments.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/09/15/two_new_orleans_students_assaulted/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/09/15/two_new_orleans_students_assaulted/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

3

<p>
[quote]
Anyone know how St. Louis' crime rate affects Washington U?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>In my opinion, after spending time in the city and on the campus.....this is really more of a suburban campus. I don't believe that this campus is IN the city. Very nice park and upscale residential but not the heart of St. Louis.</p>

4

<p>Yes, Boston College is in Newton, MA and there are no "BAD" areas in Newton. However, many students live off campus in nearby Brighton and Allston. In addition, most will partake in Boston nightlife. So while Boston is a fairly safe city, it cannot be compared to Newton. Nor, should one think of BC as in "Newton" unless the student never leaves campus.</p>

5

<p>Colleges are required to submit crime reports to the federal goverment. Look up your school here.</p>

<p><a href="http://ope.ed.gov/security/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://ope.ed.gov/security/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Boston College is not in a safe area, in my opinion, but it's all relative to where you live and what's acceptable to your family. A girl was raped on the BC campus while jogging the weekend before my visit there with D.</p>

<p>I went to school in Boston and there were rapes all the time and muggings every weekend. It didn't seem unusual at the time, but I DID jog from the library to my apartment after dark! If you're in a city, you just learn to be streetwise and the students shrug it off.</p>

<p>Now that it's MY daughter, it's a huge concern for me! We've been checking this crime stats site for every college under consideration. D is most interested in U of Montana and their rape stats are the lowest of any college on our list. </p>

<p>Check out the stats for Harvard in 2004. I think there were 29 rapes. That's more than one every two weeks!</p>

6

<p>Boston College is in Chestnut Hill. </p>

<p>Rapes:
2002 5
2003 10
2004 5</p>

<p>Don't forget to factor # of offenses as a percentage of students when comparing schools.</p>

7

<p>The biggest rape danger on campuses by far is date rape, and it has nothing to do with "the neighborhood". Most of it goes unreported.</p>

<p>If you want to make any sense of campus crime data, you have to know how many of the crimes were committed by the students themselves.</p>

8

<p>I agree, Mini, but the stats on this site are reported in three categories:
residence halls
on campus property (but not in residence halls)
off campus, which would of course include off-campus student apartments.</p>

<p>Yes, most rape is date rape and much of it is not reported, but if you use the federal information to compare reported crime date for schools while factoring in student popoulation, you get valid information.</p>

9

<p>Boston College is in the City of Newton, Village of Chestnut Hill. If you go the Massachusetts State website and search the town and city directory, you will find no actual town or city named Chestnut Hill. Newton has a total 13 villages and each is known by its village name, but they are all still in Newton. The confusion comes in because Chestnut Hill is, also, a name given to a section of nearby Brookline.</p>

10

<p>Mini, in my experience living in Boston, the biggest rape threat came from the neighborhood and not fellow students. A girl in my building was dragged out of the foyer by two men and raped in the yard next to the building. Another night a girl was raped in the park across the street and the rapist was rescued from the student mob by the police. My roommate was chased from the grocery store back to the apartment and fought her "attacker" off before he could get the upper hand. I knew plenty of men and women who were mugged. Rape and muggings were not even discussed at school the following day because they were so commonplace. I don't believe Boston had or has an unusually high crime rate, it's just a city and crime happens. It's a fact of life and the students expect it.</p>

<p>Look at most of the stats for the "city" Ivies and you'll see much the same. You really need to look at it school by school and draw your own conclusions. I think the neighborhood is a huge factor in crime rates, and the school's response to crime is an important question to ask the administration.</p>

11

<p>"Yes, most rape is date rape and much of it is not reported, but if you use the federal information to compare reported crime date for schools while factoring in student popoulation, you get valid information."</p>

<p>How so? If the the campus environment is such that the culture demands reporting of crimes committed among students, then crime data will indicate an increase. If there is a lot of crime, and the culture is not to report it, one might see a decrease. And none of this will tell you anything about crime that is at all related to the campus neighborhood. </p>

<p>"One in 20 (4.7 percent) women reported being raped in college since the beginning of the school year – a period of approximately 7 months – and nearly three-quarters of those rapes (72 percent) happened when the victims were so intoxicated they were unable to consent or refuse. These were among the findings of a study of 119 schools nationwide, by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study, Saint Joseph's University and the University of Arizona, published in the January 2004 issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol."</p>

<p>But you won't find anywhere close to that number of rapes (70,000?) reported in the college-by-college data - and for every rape there are approximately 8 sexual assaults.</p>

<p>Crime data is notoriously finicky. I work with it professionally all the time. National data is a roll-up of locally reported data, and the closer you get to the data, the more suspect it becomes. My favorite case was an incident that caused the entire state of Iowa to withdraw from the FBI Crime Tracking system in the early 1990s. A burglar with an orange plastic toy gun entered a house in the middle of the night. He was confronted by his victim. A struggle took place, and during the course of the struggle, the burglar was struck over the head with an unattached toilet seat (the victim was remodeling his bathroom) and died. The FBI reported the data as a "gun-related homicide".</p>

<p>(P.S. My college roommate was shot to death two years after graduation in a parking lot five blocks from Harvard Yard.)</p>

12

<p>Ok, Mini, valid point about campus culture. I think that is why the campus crime stats included on campus and off campus stats. </p>

<p>So, then look at the federal figures for non-campus public property. In the Harvard neighborhood, there were 23 rapes which would indicate to me that it is a dangerous neighborhood, which it IS!</p>

13

<p>Applying the 4.7% to the Harvard female population (undergraduates only!) would mean there were at least 145 campus rapes (the vast majority on campus) in the first 7 months of last year, and approximately 1,140 sexual assaults.</p>

<p>Comparably, the 23 are a drop in the bucket.</p>

14

<p>ok, I guess this boils down to the definition of rape. I had a roommate who would routinely bring home guys after a night of drinking. She would sleep with one, two or more in a night or at the same time(!) while drunk out of her mind. Was this rape? She would go out and do it again the next weekend. If the guy is as drunk as the girl and she can't consent or refuse, can he? If she isn't responsible for her actions, is he?</p>

15

<p>Mini-you are quoting statistics of rapes while intoxicated as reported by women from various colleges. Who's to say these women are from a reporting or non-reporting campus culture? You can't apply those stats to the federal crime stats and draw conclusions since it's all based on reported data, not actual fact. The data is simply from two different studies or collection methods.</p>

<p>I guess it's up to the user of the campus crime site to decide if they want to put an value on the statistics. Better than nothing I think.</p>

16

<p>It is rape if the perpetrator could be charged with a crime if it was reported. It would make no difference if it occurred on campus or off, whether the victim knew the perpetrator before the crime took place, and whether the perpetrator was a student or not. The definition is exactly the same in either case; the law (rightfully) makes no distinctions.</p>

<p>I hope you noted that 28% of the victims cited were NOT so intoxicated as to not be able to provide informed consent at the time the crime was committed - which (using the Harvard example) would still mean 41 on-campus rapes, still dwarfing the 23 in the neighborhood. (Do you think the fact that a rape occurs off-campus means the victim wasn't intoxicated?) Multiply by 8 or so for sexual assaults where the victim was not intoxicated.</p>

17

<p>or add the 23 in the neighborhood to the 29 on campus reported for a total of 52. Comparing these actual reported numbers for an individual college to percentages based on national averages...is it valid or not? The argument could go on forever. </p>

<p>Hey, I was just providing a campus crime web site link that was started in response to a murdered girl's parents' lobbying efforts. I thought I was providing useful information to parents. Use the data or not! Jeez........</p>

18

<p>The on-campus versus public property crime rates probably tell you more about the housing at a particular college than anything else.</p>

<p>For example, take a large state university in an college town where on-campus housing is provided for only a fraction of the student body. These schools will report a much higher number of public property crimes that may or may not reflect an underlying level of safety in the surrounding community. In many cases, these rates would only reflect the fact that many of the "dorms" are privately owned.</p>

<p>Student rape is so weighted towards date rape and so strongly correlated with heavy drinking that, if you are really concerned about it, you should pay particular attention to the binge drinking rates at colleges. 72% of self-reported rapes occured while the woman was intoxicated</p>

<p>The incidence of non-intoxicated rapes is consistent across all types of schools (low-binge, medium binge, high binge). However, the picture is very different for the 72% of rapes that involve inoxication. 2.4% of women at schools with "low" binge drinking rates self-report these kinds of rapes compared to 3.5% at "medium" binge rate schools, and 4.3% at "high" binge rate schools. </p>

<p>Drinking by women is particularly relevant. The Harvard study looked at rapes (all types) reported by women in three categories of drinkers. Non-binge drinkers (i.e. reported drinking in the prior year, but not binge drinking in the two weeks prior to the survey), occasional binge drinkers (reported binge drinking once or twice in the prior two weeks), and frequnent binge drinkers (reported binge drinking three or more times in the prior two weeks.</p>

<p>The percentage of women self-reporting a rape of any kind from the three groups were:</p>

<p>Non-binge drinker: 2.4%
Occasional binge drinker: 5.5%
Frequent binge drinker: 11.0%</p>

<p>BTW, this data is relevant to parents of male students, too. Under current practice, an intoxicated woman cannot give legal consent. The implications of this are important for every male college student to understand.</p>

<p>The data is all available here:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/cas/Documents/rapeintox/037-Mohler-Kuo.sep1.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/cas/Documents/rapeintox/037-Mohler-Kuo.sep1.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

19

<p>Get thee to a nunnery!</p>

20

<p>Back to the overall issue of crime, it's not just the neighborhood, but how seriously the college takes security that matters. Some colleges in "safe" locations may be lax, and students may also not be cautious because they have a false sense of security.<br>
Columbia has very low crime rates in and around the campus. It's not just that the neighborhood has gotten much safer, but that campus security is good (the university knows this is essential to attracting students to NYC, and to convincing parents to let their kids go there). The students, too, seem to be aware that they need to use some common sense at night on city streets.</p>