Blogs and Stories
How Safe Is Your College?
METHODOLOGY:
Our methodology is obviously important, and we want to be as transparent as the most forthright colleges were in reporting statistics to the federal government. First, we took two years of the most recent data (to smooth out any one-year aberrations) provided by each college to the U.S. Department of Education. We included criminal incidents in on campus, including residence halls, and off campus, including sidewalks, parks and transit stops, corresponding with a broader map of campus reach filed by each school. We then focused solely on reported crime statistics, rather than arrests (which measure the efficacy of the local police, rather than criminal incidents) and disciplinary procedures (largely drug and alcohol possession). For universities that have more than one campus in the same metropolitan area, stats for those campuses were combined.
Second, since not all crimes are alike, we more heavily weighted the most violent offenses. We considered burglary and motor vehicle theft the most pedestrian. Robbery, which differs from burglary in that it generally involves taking property off a person, was weighted three times as high as those two categories. Aggravated assault and arson, five times. Manslaughter, ten times. Murder, 20 times. The trickiest category was rape. Acquaintance rape is not broken out, and many schools that do the most to support and encourage victims to report the crime—and are thus in many ways the safest environments—also had the most incidents. We wound up giving it standard weighting, in an attempt to balance the crime’s severity without overpenalizing schools that report the most because they offer more support.
Third, because the most recent Department of Education data cuts off at the end of 2007, we adjusted each school’s number for the violent crime rate increase or decrease in the local area, as determined by the FBI, between then and the end of 2008, so that they would better reflect the current environment.
Finally, that raw score was then divided by the student body so that a student at smaller schools and giant universities could be compared apples-to-apples. (We did not rank any school with fewer than 4,000 students, undergraduate and graduates combined, because we felt that even a handful of incidents skew the results too below that number.) That’s how we developed the Daily Beast ranking.
Clark Merrefield was the chief researcher for this ranking.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.
How Rich People Smoke Pot
Paul Schrodt is a writer living in New York City. He has contributed to New York magazine, Radar, and Esquire.com.
Justice Clinton?
As vice chairman of Public Strategies and president of Maverick Media, Mark McKinnon has helped meet strategic challenges for candidates, corporations and causes, including George W. Bush, John McCain, Governor Ann Richards, Charlie Wilson, Lance Armstrong, and Bono. McKinnon is co-chair of Arts & Labs, a collaboration between technology and creative communities that have embraced today's rich Internet environment to deliver innovative and creative digital products to consumers.
White Out
The Daily Beast is dedicated to news and commentary, culture, and entertainment. We carefully curate the web’s most essential stories and bring you original must-reads from our talented contributors.
This Week's Hot Reads
The Daily Beast is dedicated to news and commentary, culture, and entertainment. We carefully curate the web’s most essential stories and bring you original must-reads from our talented contributors.
The World's 12 Most Fashionable Hotels
The Daily Beast is dedicated to news and commentary, culture, and entertainment. We carefully curate the web’s most essential stories and bring you original must-reads from our talented contributors.
ladyrain
Perhaps there is less to worry about with a city college, even though cities are inherently somewhat dangerous places.
We're conditioned to be 'on guard' in that atmosphere. On beautiful, serene college campuses, with their quads and landscaping and gorgeous architecture, we let our guard down and assume that since it's so warm and inviting, that it must be "safe". Not so, at all. I personally experienced this with my son, who went to college on a beautiful Penn. campus. While nothing happened while he was there, when he transferred to Boston I felt better, because he was familiar with that city and how to inhabit it.
Twisted
Penn is a great campus however the surrounding neighborhood is pretty awful however in my 1 year stay there as a graduate student in the mid 70's i was most worried about getting roughed up by the philly police or a drunk greek. Lo and behold walking with my cousin to our organic food Co - op at 5:00 am saturday morning for our stint sorting and boxing the weeks purchases we slowed down to gawk at the Africa enclave and got grabbed and punched out by the philly police thinking that we were supporters they soon let us go after checking our story and ID's. BTW i left Penn for my first real juob in the US dept of Justice and they assigned me not where i wanted to go but into the Philly office my colleagues wondered why i was so zealous about prosecuting philly police officials.
nortonclybourn
After you "left" Penn? I can only hope that they kicked you out because you are unable to write a coherent sentence.
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
Sempronia
Penn now is not Penn in the 1970s. I did act cautiously while I was there earlier this decade, but I felt pretty safe overall. Certainly, you heard of things -- I did have a professor get mugged by someone who hit her over the head with a brick, and there was the incident of the student whose groceries were stolen -- but as with any city, you handled it with care and, if you did go out and about late at night, walked with a friend or hoped for the best. Besides, for better or worse, Penn is slowly eating up its side of the Schuylkill in an endless march of gentrification. It may be reducing crime, or it may end up bringing more of it into campus territory, but I think it will be something to watch...
kscr14
In our area university a campus policeman killed a student in cold blood. Her took her while in uniform to a remote location and killed her. Since that day I've never thought campus was "safe". Just another sick, twisted freak. I do think students feel safe, walk alone alot, drink too much usually late at night and all of these make them targets.
Twisted
Sorry, the methodology used to prepare this article is totally flawed, non reporting by crime victims (the drug deal gone bad the underage alcohol issue etc any one who reports is a "rat") to under reporting non reporting by the institutions skews any attempt at crime stat comparison. I would feel safest at any of the state land grant colleges and universities.
Johnnyappleseed
So what is the issue here?
Listing institutions of higher learning that are not safe from crime, how about High Schools? Hospitals? Parks? the list is endless.
In a country of over three hundred million where will one be comletely safe from any type of crime?
nortonclybourn
Alarmist pandering to fear is always good for circulation.
sophia5
How was Virginia Tech NOT #1 ?
32 Murdered. 25 Wounded.
heatherdmb
(Virginia Tech, the site of a murder spree that claimed 32 lives and wounded numerous others, did not appear on the list because it is based on calculations of campus safety based on a per student rate averaged over two years; despite the murders, Virginia Tech, with 30,000 students, had very little other crime, and therefore narrowly missed inclusion in the top 25).
It's based on percentages....more students and one major incident versus likely alot more of lesser known crimes in smaller college communities....
sophia5
heatherdmb -
I get your point, and I realized the percentage angle, demographics, etc.
My point was creeps, crazies, evil people, they don't consider percentages.
They just do it.
"It" can happen anytime, anywhere.
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
democracyforall
The most number of violent colleges and the #1 most violent in Massachusetts. And a most liberal state. That's what a lack of religion and a lack of discipline will do.
drkev118
wrong limbaugh lemming loser. criminals are of all variety, starting at the top we have dumbya cheney nixon ect ect ect now go back to your mega mall church and learn hate some more from a mythical figure that never existed much like your brain
Veronicaxy
"a most liberal state. That's what a lack of religion and a lack of discipline will do."
Troll.
themoreiknow
You're "right", everyone knows people with religion never hurt anyone, lol, perhaps you could attempt a little disciplined thinking. Or don't bother, you could grow up to be a palinontologist maybe!
phantomdc4
You are so mistaken, when is the last time an Atheist committed a violent crime? You say a lack of religion causes an increase in violent crime because you are taught that it does by your religious leaders. It does not, religion, if anything, increases violent crime when it influences it at all. Religion influences hatred towards people who don't have the same religious views, against homosexuals, and anything else that religious leaders decide is a financial foe to the offering plate.
hennypenny
Indeed, because religion has never been associated with violence in any way. Unless you're talking about the Crusades. Or the Thirty Years War. Or most wars, actually...
roadhunter
Unless the crime is rape, murder, shooting, etc., these statistics are meaningless, as universities cover crimes up to protect their image.
I attended the University of Tulsa, as well as Oklahoma State University. At TU, I reported the burglary of a dorm room to campus police, including a description of the burglar as he fled. They refused to call city police, and convinced me not to do so.
At OSU, we had an incident in which football players were caught stealing on campus. Again, the incident was not reported off-campus.
My father works security at another Oklahoma university, and arrested 4 students with over 3lbs of marijuana. He was told not to alert the media or off-campus security, so I made an anonymous tip to the local paper. The entire community was stunned.
cardicollins
At OSU the campus police have full police authority, empowered by the State of Oklahoma and are CLEET trained. The municipal police have no more authority than the officers on campus and the two work together to make the campus and Stillwater safe. The offense at OSU was reported to the OSU police and the matter was investigated by the detectives. I remember reading in the Stillwater NewsPress that the athletes were prosecuted. The incident was not "swept under the rug". I believe TU's officers have full police authority as well, but I can't comment on the events that occured at TU; you know whether your report was followed up on or not.
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
ThinkAgain
It's a tough balance. You want students to feel safe and comfortable but no much so that they actually enable crime.
Given student lifestyles, lots of walking, drinking, irresponsible behaviors etc. I might hesitate to send my kid to a school in a rougher downtown city environment.
ladyrain
To democracyforall: the Mass. statistics involved burglaries. I daresay the stats for murder would show a completely different demographic. As to the "lack of religion and discipline" is concerned, look up the stats on the most out-of-wedlock birth states. You will be most unpleasantly surprised. Back to the college story---given the small size of Mass. and the huge number of colleges in the state, I would expect the stats to be as high as they are: more colleges=more opportunity.
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
knockoutx
The vast majority of crimes at Emerson are people stupidly leaving their stuff unattended at Starbucks nextdoor or in the gym lockers. If you tally our crime rate by quantity rather than quality (please excuse my simplification), then of course our 80 "robberies" are going to look worse than Harvard's rapes.
communicator
This kind of apples-and-oranges "list-making" is a form of hit-and-run journalism. The DB gets a story, and possibly a yearly "tradition", and colleges and universities are left picking up the pieces of their damaged reputations.
GPatton
Schools should have mandatory self defense classes. Most colleges are full of left wingers who are soft on crime, and students are vulnerable to criminals who know this. Sitting ducks... George Patton
roadhunter
Thanks for explaining why so many right wingers are stupid. I'm not sure where you are, but I can assure you that about 99% of the criminals in my city not only don't know that left wingers are soft on crime, the only left wings and right wings they know come on a plate next to the cole slaw and mashed potatoes from KFC.
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
bebefl
The research on this piece is ridiculous. Harvard's Cambridge has lots of druggies and homeless and could use a good broom sweep here and there ok but not " dangerous"- but MIT??? MIT has nothing but newer office buildings loaded with top security because the buildings are filled with researchers who have minded their own business for years. And to the other side of MIT towards Boston the school campus borders on the Back Bay. The Back Bay is loaded with expensive boutiques, hotels, parent tourists and townhouses. And most of the MIT campus also sits directly on the Charles. Unless scuba divers are raiding the school MIT is the safest place to be especially since they have bright lights and heavy security everywhere.The campus is even safer than Harvard. So whoever wrote this piece should do their homework. What are you talking about? Makes me think your research is completely skewed elsewhere but don't know about the other schools since I went only to Harvard. Penn ok is in a very very bad area and extremely dangerous. Yale's New Haven is a dump and dangerous. What about all the muggings and sexual assaults, and attacks at Princeton. The town appears to be idyllic but unfortunately this is not the case because where there is excessive drinking there are issues. My friend left after many incidents went unreported. I know Princeton looks so serene but the gangs come from Camden, Newark and Trenton. But hey don't tell the parents lol. There are no boundaries whatsoever on that campus and the thugs swarm Princeton U like bees to honey. Not to mention the school never reports a thing unless they are forced to. The alcohol poisonings on " the street" (drinking clubs open to students on campus) are unbelievable. Why no mention of Princeton if you are going to site Harvard? Harvard is much more serene. Overall this article is terrible and misleads everyone! Must be a bunch of Princeton students writing this garbage. And Columbia is safe not at the top of the list either?
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
TeeJay
I assume that when you say you "went . . . to Harvard," you mean you took the campus tour. Your writing shows no trace of an Ivy League education. You also know as little about crime rates near Penn, Princeton, and Yale as you do about those near Harvard. So thugs are swarming poor old Princeton? Really? What nonsense!
EmersonAlum
This is just another example of how the adage, "Don't believe everything you read," is becoming a greater truth as the internet makes poor reporting even more possible.
As a recent alum of Emerson, I am one of the statistics that you used for your "data." I lost my wallet last year and reported it to the Emerson Police - it went in as "theft." These are the types of crimes that occur at Emerson. Every so often in the "police beat" of the paper, you'd read about some silly student who would leave his stuff unattended in the library or Dunkin Donuts and come back to find it gone. Yet, for some reason, you have chosen to present your "dangerous data" in a way that has murders trumped by burglaries. You even blatantly admit within your blurb about Emerson that it, "has almost no on-campus crime" and quote Andrew Tiedemann, saying, "'Any crimes that happen on Boston Common and in the subway station show up in our report but do not involve our community. " But are quick to disregard the, "do not involve our community," saying that students go beyond the college campus. And while this is true, did you actually compare incidents in those areas with those that happen to students? Did you ask anyone in the Emerson student body about their experiences with crime in the area? Wouldn't that have been a more substantial angle, considering, this could potentially dissuade kids from applying to the school?
And, explain to me again, how burglaries and assaults vs. murders, etc. justifies labeling it as the most dangerous school out of your whole 9,000? Doesn't that just seem odd, right of the bat?
ESPECIALLY if you were truly following the reasoning you stated in the body of the article: "weighing different crimes against each other (murder carrying far more importance than, say, burglary)" - Emerson would ABSOLUTELY not be first.
The better way of presenting your data would have been by TYPE of incident PER CAPITA, instead of just a GENERAL count PER CAPITA. Excuse me for a second here while I write, DUH. While your more astute readers will pick up on the fact that there is a significant problem with your list - others may be mislead. This is where you have failed to do your job.
This is a shoddy use of data, poorly presented. The DB should be very, very embarrassed.
EmersonAlum
This is just another example of how the adage, "Don't believe everything you read," is becoming a greater truth as the internet makes poor reporting even more possible.
As a recent alum of Emerson, I am one of the statistics that you used for your "data." I lost my wallet last year and reported it to the Emerson Police - it went in as "theft." These are the types of crimes that occur at Emerson. Every so often in the "police beat" of the paper, you'd read about some silly student who would leave his stuff unattended in the library or Dunkin Donuts and come back to find it gone. Yet, for some reason, you have chosen to present your "dangerous data" in a way that has murders trumped by burglaries. You even blatantly admit within your blurb about Emerson that it, "has almost no on-campus crime" and quote Andrew Tiedemann, saying, "'Any crimes that happen on Boston Common and in the subway station show up in our report but do not involve our community. " But are quick to disregard the, "do not involve our community," saying that students go beyond the college campus. And while this is true, did you actually compare incidents in those areas with those that happen to students? Did you ask anyone in the Emerson student body about their experiences with crime in the area? Wouldn't that have been a more substantial angle, considering, this could potentially dissuade kids from applying to the school?
And, explain to me again, how burglaries and assaults vs. murders, etc. justifies labeling it as the most dangerous school out of your whole 9,000? Doesn't that just seem odd, right of the bat?
ESPECIALLY if you were truly following the reasoning you stated in the body of the article: "weighing different crimes against each other (murder carrying far more importance than, say, burglary)" - Emerson would ABSOLUTELY not be first.
The better way of presenting your data would have been by TYPE of incident PER CAPITA, instead of just a GENERAL count PER CAPITA. Excuse me for a second here while I write, DUH. While your more astute readers will pick up on the fact that there is a significant problem with your list - others may be mislead. This is where you have failed to do your job.
This is a shoddy use of data, poorly presented. The DB should be very, very embarrassed.
Thank you.
As a first time user, your comment has been submitted for review. It can take anywhere from a few hours to a day or two for your comment to be reviewed, depending on the time of week and the volume of comments we receive.