The University of Memphis Police Services released the Annual Campus Security Report for 2001 Tuesday, showing an 18 percent decrease from 2000 in crime incidents reported on campus.
“It (the decrease) definitely makes me feel safer,” said Melanie Scherer, a junior political science major. “I especially feel safer parking on campus.”
This year’s report shows a marked decrease in every category, and The U of M is continuing the trend so far in the 2002 school year.
“Year to date, crime is down 18.5 percent from last year,” said Bruce Harber, director of public safety. “It’s continuing the trend we started last year.”
Reported crime incidents at The U of M decreased in every category between the 2000 school year and the 2001 school year, with the biggest decrease in motor vehicle theft.
Motor vehicle theft went from 42 reported incidents in 2000 to 23 last year, with 1.2 occurrences for every 1,000 people.
“Auto thefts were nearly cut in half,” Harber said. “We looked at the number of thefts from vehicles and thefts of vehicles and realized we needed to target the lots.”
Police Services targeted the parking lots last year through efforts focusing on deterring crime, including better lighting and more police presence in the lots. This year they are considering putting gates, fences and more lighting in many of the lots.
“We changed out the glass in the towers so people could actually see that there was somebody in them,” Harber said. “We also added more police patrolling and lighting.”
Harber said the campus police made some arrests of potential car thieves, which also served as a deterrent to others.
“It helps when you get the word out (that people are being arrested),” Harber said. “As you raise a person’s chances of getting caught, they just move on.”
The biggest crime problem on campus last year was larceny, with a rate of 12.2 occurrences for every 1,000 people, according to statistics compiled by Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
To avoid larceny crimes last year, Harber said his department spoke with incoming freshmen, their parents and new faculty members.
“Larceny is a big problem on any campus,” Harber said. “We (Police Services) can’t (decrease) it all by ourselves. We need the whole campus community to work toward a goal of no crime.”
Although the crime rate for The University has continued to decrease since the 1999 school year, some students still see it as a dangerous place.
“People assume that the U of M crime rate coincides with the City of Memphis’ crime rate,” Scherer said. “And that isn’t necessarily true.”
Jennifer Persechini, a junior elementary education major, agreed that The U of M often gives Memphis a bad reputation.
“Memphis has bad crime,” she said. “And a lot of people associate the campus crime with the city.”
Harber said that despite the city’s crime rate, The U of M campus is one of the safest places to be.
“The campus’ crime rate should be lower than anywhere else in the city,” he said. “We have our own campus police department and we overlap with the Memphis Police Department, so people are less likely to be involved in a crime on campus than anywhere else.”
Despite the police presence, which is higher than that at many colleges that just have a security department, the University’s population affects some people’s opinion of crime on The U of M campus.
“The U of M is a small community, so if something happens, everyone is going to hear about it,” Harber said. “What you should really focus on is the number of incidents per 1,000 people.”
For example, in the category of larceny, The U of M had 12.2 reported incidents per 1,000 people, while the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, had 18.7, showing that regardless of the 8,000 more people enrolled at UTK, The U of M still had a lower larceny rate.
The U of M also showed lower larceny rates than both Rhodes College and Christian Brothers University. Rhodes had a rate of 19.8 reported larcenies per 1,000 people, while CBU reported 15.2 for the 2001 school year, according to the TBI report.
Despite the decrease in motor vehicle theft at The U of M, The University’s rate was still higher than that of UT, with 1.2 and 0.9 instances per 1,000 people, respectively.
“We have a pretty safe campus here,” Harber said. “We’re pleased that the crime reports are down, but we’ll strive to make them even lower.”
