Crime in and around campus has always been a problem. However, this academic year is much worse. I know that increased levels of crime is to be expected in an urban setting, but not like what is happening now. For those who don’t know Austin or UT, due to lack of available provided housing, less than 15% of students live on-campus. Most live in west campus or north, easily walkable, few blocks away. There’s a large homeless population, currently living in and around campus. On a daily basis, during all hours of the day and night, students are harassed and attacked, including physically. Girls being grabbed and/or chased into dorms(especially Hardin House), other students trying to intervene (one student was even given an award by the Police Department for helping). Last month, on the parent’s FB page, 2 reports of homeless in school buildings, one assault/robbery between 8-9 am, student waiting to go to class, another of a “well-known” individual repeatedly getting into Jester (dorm building). Multiple non-residents found in off-campus dorms, including one who for several days impersonated a handyman, and received access to dorm rooms. This weekend: shooting 2 blocks from DC dorm Saturday night, a stabbing Sunday morning, and a drive-by shooting last night just outside of DC dorm, victim transported to hospital. (DC lives in west campus, 3 blocks away). Took police over 50 minutes to respond, by then the suspects were long gone. To make matters worse, no communication from school, no alerts, no texts to parents or students. Nothing. Students were spreading the word via social media to each other. Parents, including myself, had to listen to the Travis County police scanner for info. I can’t tell my DC to not go out at night, because there are weekly mandatory in-person club meetings, as well as tests that are only given to students between the hours of 8 and 10 pm. Needless to say, parents are beyond fed-up. There’s a private parent FB page, Safehorns, almost 4,000 members, where parents have started petitions, and are contacting any and all who could possibly help (by email and social media): university president, governor, mayor, city council reps, Jenna Bush Hager and other famous alumni, Lester Holt (reporting from Austin today), anyone. Probably won’t do any good but parents are really upset and don’t know what else to do. I am posting to let prospective students/parents be aware of the current issues. Some students were so traumatized this morning that they were too scared to go outside to go to class, some professors canceled class. Therefore, this lack of safety is also impacting the mental health and education of the students. Please consider this as you look at schools for next year.
And………I’m not kidding. My DC just texted that there’s supposed to be a club meeting right now, half the students are on campus and half are texting that they can’t make it right now because there’s shooting and a police chase on Guadalupe (the main street between west campus and the university) and that they’re hiding in some businesses and will try to come out when it’s safe.
Wow! That is awful! I am so sorry to hear that the kids and families have to deal with this situation.
For a somewhat brighter perspective, Austin’s crime rate, when considered across the entire city, appears to be average compared to other cities in Texas and substantially better than average when compared to other large cities in the nation, based on this 2020 article:
However, this more recent article reports on a disturbing record in the number of homicides:
I’m so sorry that you and your child are dealing with such a scary and frustrating situation! Thank you also for sharing. It’s the type of information is often difficult to find when you’re researching schools for your children.
That page says 62 so far this year, versus a high of 59 in 1984. However, in 1984, Austin’s population was about 41% of the current population, so even if homicides continue at the current rate (reaching 74 for the year), the 1984 rate would still be 35% higher (or the current rate is about 26% lower than in 1984).
Still, there seems to have been a rapid rise in Austin’s homicide rate since 2017, when there were about 25. Also, a current homicide rate only 26% lower than in the crime wave era is not that great, even though current students may be facing a lower homicide and other crime rate than their parents did (if the parents also attended UT Austin).
From what I have seen, homeless people may be unsightly, but generally not the main source of violent crime. Perhaps people pay too much attention to homeless people (calling the police on them, etc.) rather than considering other potential criminal threats (like the sexual predator taking advantage of drunk victims at an alcohol party).
https://crimegrade.org/theft-78705/
“F” grade
I agree that most violent crimes are not caused by homeless, but on a daily basis students are verbally and sometimes physically attacked, totally randomly it seems.
However, today’s environment may not be simple to compare to that of the past without historical data on UT’s district, as in the current information posted above based on ZIP code.
The 78712 zip is UT Austin. The line immediately to the left is Guadalupe Street, where the crime reporting begins, then West campus extending to the left. Crime in North Campus is shown, too. With 10-15% of students living on campus, knowing there are commuters and students who live further off campus and take the bus in, I’d estimate 30-40% of students would be living in West campus. Because of the large student presence and increasing crime in West campus, as well as the fact that UT owns and runs several dorms in West campus, they opened a “police station”, which eased some fears, until we found out it is staffed only from 10 am to 2 pm.
Austin police is so severely defunded they put out a statement months ago saying they would no longer respond to:
- Animal services
- Attempted theft of property
- Burglary of residence, business or vehicle
- Crashes between vehicles that don’t require a tow, there are no injuries, both drivers have proof of insurance and a driver’s license and neither driver is impaired
- Verbal disturbances
- Prostitution
- Suspicious person or vehicle
- Theft
If you don’t respond and don’t arrest, crime rate goes down.
Crime rates went up nationwide starting around 2018 after a 25 year decline. This increase in crime occurred outside urban areas too, and seems to be most pronounced in the South.
As the parent of a sophomore who lives in West Campus, I can confirm that all of this is true. We were well aware that UT’s in an urban area before enrolling, but have truly been shocked at not only the amount of crime, but how it’s been handled (or not) by the university. My child calls on a regular basis to tell me about being harassed by homeless people (mostly asking for money/food, but most recently one trying to push themselves into the car while my child was getting gas). And a few nights ago, calling in the middle of the night after a shooting very near their apartment building and the shooter was on the loose (still hasn’t been caught, to my knowledge). I hear from UT on a regular basis via email and text, asking for donations to various funds. However, I don’t hear a peep when there’s an active crime taking place in W. Campus, where tens of thousands of their students live, and students are terrified and wondering if it’s safe to go outside. It has been so disappointing and has made me seriously doubt giving my younger child the option of ever attending there.
If you’re a prospective parent, I highly recommend following SafeHorns on FB or Twitter. If you’re the parent of an enrolled student, you can also join the private, working FB page UT Parents Putting Safety First – SafeHorns. Both are excellent resources and have been so eye opening. They’ve been advocating for several different safety measures that would greatly improve the UT environment for students. (SafeHorns is parent/volunteer-run, NOT university-run as discussion of issues like this are not allowed on the official, university run Texas Parents page - which is another disappointment).
Although other schools send alerts to parents, UT says it is too big to do so. I believe A&M does, but this is second-hand information. And A&M is larger.
Additionally, even with the high percentage of students in West campus, and UT owning at least 2 of the dorms in West campus, they have said the alerts to students will not extend to West campus, where more of the crime is occurring, because they are not obligated to do so.
I won’t count on these universities for alerts. My DD has Ring at her apartment door on Red River, if you turn on the neighborhood warning you will get 3-4 crime watch email notification every day…scary. Your heart needs to be strong.
Back in the old days when I was student I could wall all the way from dorm to sixth street, that was the 90s. No way nowadays. As a matter of fact my DD won’t go out after dark.
By almost any objective measure, everywhere was much more dangerous in the 90’s than it is today.
Not Austin. Back in the 90s, there was no homeless in Austin. You could hardly find one.
Now with three times population, drugs become a major problem. The so called “homeless” a lot of the times are drug addicts and that turn to a lot of other crimes.
Also back in the 90s, police didn’t have much work to do they even help students moving during August and winter break. I am not referring to the campus police on bicycles, the real police in patrol car. I was once picked up by a police seeing me hauling a large luggage and a drawing fold table on MLK on move out day the police helped me move everything to apartment. I was the fifth student the police helped that day. Nowadays they won’t even respond to real crime if it was not “serious” enough.
I guess that collective memories do not go as far back as 1966. UT is no stranger to deadly violence.
University of Texas tower shooting - Wikipedia