<p>I heard that Walla Walla has a rather serious gang violence problem. I googled the term "Walla Walla gangs" and found a number of articles on the situation. A recent article indicated that the local police only have three gang officers and are currently tracking over 500 gang members in Walla Walla. This seems like a large number of gang members for such a small city. I would be interested in hearing from any students from Whitman on how they see this situation. Whitman seems like a truely great school, but I am worried about the recent string of gang violence in the city. Thanks.</p>
<p>I am a current freshman at Whitman. I have heard about the gangs in walla walla, but haven’t experienced any problems with them. I regularly go off campus into town (at night as well) and have ridden my bike around a lot. I think that the gangs are probably in the parts of town where the students aren’t. I don’t know of any students that have had any problems either.</p>
<p>Every once in a while there’s a story about a break-in, or theft of a laptop or bike. In the majority of cases, as I understand it, the items were not secured: the bike wasn’t locked or the doors were open. Whitman is a very safe place, but bad things can happen when people assume it’s safer than it is.</p>
<p>As for the gang activity, Walla Walla is also the location of the state prison. Maybe that has an impact?</p>
<p>I think Walla Walla is a safe community. However, it is a small community–so problems do get covered and commented on in ways that would be lost or ho-hum in a more urban area. It is also a rural agricultural community with some significant disparities between rich and poor–so you would expect to find incidents of theft, drug problems, and even gangs–which are a national phenomenon, just not well publicized in many places. Because Whitman has a sociology and politics department that are very interested in issues like criminal justice, gang violence, immigration issues and distribution of wealth/resources, you will see topics like these covered in the school paper perhaps more than other places–but I think it would be wrong to infer specific campus danger from this. Kids I know there feel safe, both on the campus and in the community. Everyone needs to learn common sense about personal security and safety anywhere they go to college–but I think the learning comes about easily at Whitman and I can think of many college/university setting that seem way more high risk than Walla Walla to me.</p>
<p>Well, I guess it’s all relative. We live in Oakland, and whatever crime there may be in in Walla Walla is on a small scale. D is finishing up her senior year at Whitman and her sense of personal safety is very high. There is petty theft at all colleges (laptops, ipods, bikes). Students are an easy target, I think. There does seems to be some gang-on-gang stuff reported lately, but I don’t think it has had any impact on students. I don’t think there is a serious crime problem in Walla Walla.</p>
<p>I have had friends whose kids recently went to Whitman, loved it and I never heard any concerns about safety or gang issues. I have been to Walla Walla many times for business and pleasure (great wine country) and have never experienced or seen anything that would give me pause for concern regarding gang activity. I am sure there may be some rough parts of the city (couldn’t tell you where they would be) as there are in almost any city, but Walla Walla as a whole appears to me, at least, to be a small town college atmosphere (in the best sense possible).</p>
<p>I wouldn’t let the gang stuff keep you from going. There is a gang problem in town, and there have been a few off-campus burglaries (and one on-campus burglary during winter break) related to gangs, but unfortunately, crime will happen just about anywhere you go. Generally speaking, Whitman students feel safe, and the college is also taking steps to further safety. They’ve added a lot of lighting in the past year and they just announced that they’re hiring an additional security officer. I should note that that’s not in response to lots of problems, but rather listening to student concerns and being proactive. The part of town where gang activity is prevalent is not near campus.</p>
<p>Whitman has so much to offer. I’d really recommend coming for a visit if you haven’t already. I think when you come for a visit, you’ll see that it’s a beautiful and wonderful place to study and live, and that it’s fairly safe on campus.</p>
<p>It is probably also worth noting that the “gang problem” in WW is, like in many places,gang-on-gang incidents, not the kind of violence with direct impact on campus or even adjacent community life. For a town of 30,000 people with some significant poverty/need it is not surprising that there is gang presence or some related crime but the numbers in WW are way lower than most American cities. Kids are safe there.</p>