Thefts Top UA Crime
Dorms, parking lots prime targets
Last updated Saturday, August 16, 2008 5:58 PM CDT in News
By Don Dailey & Dan Craft
The Morning News
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FAYETTEVILLE - University of Arkansas junior Anna Watkins has fallen victim to the two types of crime that predominate on campus: burglaries and thefts.
A thief took a wallet and cell phone from her purse at a fraternity party and her car was broken into in a separate incident.
The Morning News examined four years of police incident report data and found dorms and certain parking lots favorite targets of thieves. The data was from 2003 through 2006, the last full year of data provided by the university.
No murders or robberies were reported on campus during the four years examined. One aggravated assault and eight rapes were reported during that time.
"Although violent crime can occur, we don't have nearly as many as out in a city," said Lt. Gary Crain, university police spokesman.
The analysis showed certain dormitories are annual hot spots for burglaries and that the university itself is often victimized. Certain parking lots are perennial favorites for break-ins.
Those areas are ripe for what police call crimes of opportunity: A laptop stolen from a desk in the library while its owner runs to the printer or the bathroom; a backpack swiped after being left unattended at the student union.
Theft is the biggest single crime the university police department deals with, Crain said. Around 250 thefts a year are reported to university police. Bicycles, laptop computers and other electronics offer popular targets.
About 26,000 people are on campus during a typical day when classes are in session.
Stolen property reports are considered thefts if the items are stolen from public places or common areas, Crain said. Burglary occurs when the thief takes an item from a private area such as a dorm room or apartment, he said.
"Basically, if they don't have a legal right to be in the place where the crime occurs, it's burglary. If they're somewhere they're allowed to be naturally, it's theft," Crain said.
Watkins' mother, Beverly Watkins, said the items stolen from her daughter were never recovered, but that doesn't concern her as much as her daughter's personal safety on campus at night.
Anna is often on campus at night, and her parents have talked to her about using the buddy system, Beverly said.
"Our main concern is her safety walking to and from her car," Beverly Watkins said.
Big Picture
Complete student-related crime statistics are hard to calculate because many instances where students are perpetrators or victims occur off-campus, police said. University police do not track off-campus crimes, while Fayetteville police don't differentiate between students and other residents.
Students will always be a part of Fayetteville's population, as will the problems most associated with them, said Sgt. Shannon Gabbard of the Fayetteville Police Department.
"There's simply not enough room for all of them to live on campus even if they wanted to, and the nightlife, the shopping, the things these kids do, are off-campus, not on," Gabbard said. "It's a college town, and not just because the campus is here. The students live in the community."
Off campus, 24-year-old senior Katie Wood of Greenbrier was stabbed to death in a Fayetteville apartment in March. Her ex-boyfriend, Zachariah Scott Marcyniuk, 29, is charged with capital murder in the case. Marcyniuk, an on-and-off student, was found competent last week to stand trial in her death.
In September 2005, 20-year-old junior April Love of Hope was killed in a Fayetteville apartment. A former boyfriend, who was not a college student, was convicted of her murder.
Another student, Karthikeyan Sennimalai, was killed the same year in a hit-and-run accident while walking along a Fayetteville street. John Stanley Secrest, a University of Arkansas student at the time of the accident, pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident that caused injury or death.
None of those incidents was considered a campus crime, so they weren't included in university crime statistics.
The most recent murder on campus was in 2000, when James Easton Kelly, a disgruntled graduate student, shot and killed English professor John Locke, then committed suicide in Locke's Kimpel Hall office.
Dr. Mary A. Wyandt-Hiebert, a sexual assault victim advocate on the campus, said sex crimes are particularly hard to track because most rapes and other sex assaults happen off campus. When trying to determine how many of these incidents are not reported by university students, Wyandt-Hiebert goes by national statistics and some local surveys, she said.
Nationally, about 16 percent of all sexual assaults are reported, and it's estimated 1 in 4 female college students are sexually assaulted.
Wyandt-Hiebert, who is director of the Office of Support, Training, Advocacy and Resources on Sexual Assault and Relationship Violence at the Pat Walker Health Center, said local surveys indicate sexual assault rates locally are slightly lower than the national averages.
Jonathan Kassa, executive director for Security On Campus Inc., a nonprofit watchdog group, said parents should pay attention to crime rates in the city or county where their children attend college as well as the crime situation on campus.
The federal Clery Act, named after Jeanne Clery, who was murdered in her dorm room at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania in 1986, requires colleges and universities to disclose campus-report totals in nine crime categories.
Several universities in recent years have been accused or suspected of purposefully reporting inaccurate numbers in their Clery filings, but totals The Morning News gleaned from the university's database match or are close to the numbers the university has reported the past five years.
Crain said the university takes its Clery reporting seriously, attempting to be as accurate as possible. The reports are posted on the university's Web site, and the police department distributes pamphlets on campus each year with the Clery numbers.
Target-Rich Environment
The newspaper's analysis showed that dormitories Pomfret Honors Quarters, Yocum Hall, Futrall Hall and Reid Hall report high numbers of burglaries compared to other single locations on campus.
Reggie Houser, assistant director for facilities administration who deals with safety issues in residence halls, said those dorms house a lot of freshmen students and freshmen often haven't had to make a special effort to protect themselves from crime. They leave dorm room doors open or unlocked. They leave valuables like laptop computers, iPods and textbooks unattended. Women often don't keep an eye on their purses.
Kassa said many college and university administrators call September the red zone, because that's when freshmen are most vulnerable to crime.
Parking lot 56 at Razorback Road and Sixth Street consistently sees the most break-ins and thefts of any location on campus. Crain attributes that to the size of the lot, and it being on the edge of campus.
"We've had people report seeing someone going along and trying doors, looking for one that's not locked," Crain said.
The Arkansas Union is another hot spot for thefts. A lot of students go through the area each day and most of them are carrying something valuable in a purse or backpack. Kimpel Hall, Bell Engineering Center and the Health, Physical Education and Recreation building also saw multiple thefts and burglaries each year.
Houser said the university's education process never ends.
"About the time you teach a group of students how easy it is to become a crime victim, they graduate and a new crop of students comes in the fall," Houser said.
Kassa said parents and students need to understand that much of campus crime is student-on-student and alcohol or drug use is often involved. Students who keep those things in mind can better protect themselves, he said.
Alcohol is more commonly involved in what experts call drug-facilitated sexual assault than the infamous date-rape drugs GHB, rohypnol and ketamine, Kassa said.
Wyandt-Hiebert agreed, "Alcohol really, truly is the number one date-rape drug out there."
Crain said sex crimes on campus are nearly always perpetrated by someone the victim knows and alcohol is almost always involved.
Only one rape in the past five years was committed by a stranger, Crain said.
Houser said the university addresses crime prevention in orientation, and residence halls are much more secure than they were just a few years ago. Front doors can only be opened with card keys and security cameras keep a constant watchful eye.
Dorms and fraternities promote a family type atmosphere and students often become trusting of the people living around them and become lax, Houser said.
"As much as we try to educate them, students aren't convinced until they convince themselves," Houser said.
Web Watch
Security On Campus Inc.
www.securityoncampus.org
University Of Arkansas Clery Reports
http://uapd.uark.edu/
Reader Comments (5 comment(s))
The following comments are provided by readers and are the sole responsibility of their authors. The Morning News does not review comments before their publication, nor do we guarantee their accuracy. By publishing a comment here you agree to abide by our comment policy. If you see a comment that violates our policy, please notify the web editor.
friday wrote on Aug 16, 2008 10:29 PM:
recross1 wrote on Aug 17, 2008 10:27 AM:
Its a shame that some of these kids are here to do nothing but steal cheat and hurt others and all the while using thier enrollment and attendance as a cover and also thise that simply prey upon these students from outside the collage community.I think more police and sherriffs dept presence and visability would put a damper on some of these crimes,so I am all for the increase of officers in the U of A police dept and increased presence of the sherriffs dept as well. "
friday wrote on Aug 17, 2008 11:54 AM:
The reasoning is because universities across the country only expose their officers to a very limited amount of law enforcement. The officers do not get or receive the same level of street experience that street police or deputies get.
I realize the university police and administration do not want to hear criticism of their police department but stand back and just look at how the police departments of a university function.
They are not anything more that a security agency. Now that may seem like a slap in the badge, but that is what they simply are.
I understand they complete state standards but book experience does not become effective until one has the experience of physically experiencing what they learned in the books to real street cuts and burses.
The ideal police agency on campus will place their older experience officers to patrol and deal with problems on campus. The CID or detective division will be cut and any detective work will be worked out of the police agency protecting the campus.
Experience has shown me the universities administrators will do anything to cover up bad policy, which in turn creates more crime not eliminate it.
Taking police control out of the university administration will make a campus safer.
The U of A Police Department are not experience and are no more effective on campus then a security agency. "
recross1 wrote on Aug 18, 2008 2:21 PM:
Not already registered?
gary wrote on Aug 16, 2008 8:49 PM:
To bad that there are those who would use the rouse of "education" to pad their pockets. "