Campus safety can be an extremely important issue when determining which college to attend. And with The University of Memphis and other area colleges releasing 2004 campus crime reports, the numbers show the city of Memphis is safe for college students overall.
Safety is an important issue each year, according to Derek Myers, deputy director of public safety at The U of M.
"Safety is important in that the reality is our safety issues here are a lot better than rumors or perceptions," he said. "Generally speaking, state colleges are safe and the only real problems are petty theft."
The statistical report released by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation shows The U of M has 10.9 larceny or theft offenses per 1,000. And out of that number 6.1 are classified as "theft from buildings."
Compared to Christian Brothers University, The U of M has much lower numbers per 1,000 in terms of the larceny and theft. CBU is listed as having 21.9 per 1000.
"(The U of M) has a lower incident per 1,000 rate usually and we use that to see how we compare to other colleges," Myers said.
Rhodes College has a 15.2 ratio per 1,000 in the larceny and theft category.
Students at these other colleges, however, feel their campuses are quite safe.
"I feel pretty safe here and the only things I ever really hear about being bad is the back parking lot," said Trenon Turner, a CBU psychology major. "It's obviously a very small campus so safety is important but I feel (officials) do a good job."
At Rhodes, freshman Matt Breeden said he felt the same way about his college even though he realizes some theft will obviously occur anywhere.
"We have an honor code that works very well," he said. "Mostly the problems we have I think comes from some people off-campus and that's a real source of concern."
Breeden feels, however, that being on such a safe, small campus can be problematic in a way.
"I think some people here get kind of complacent after a while," he said. He added that he and other on-campus students leave their doors unlocked at times but recalls leaving his laptop computer in a library and returning much later to find it still there.
At The U of M, freshman English major Jason Reynolds-Flick thinks the large campus helps improve safety in some ways.
"I feel relatively safe on campus even though it's much bigger," he said. "I've never had any real trouble and they're doing a really good job with the police department and everything."
Reynolds-Flick said he attended Arkansas State University in Jonesboro and assumed coming back to his home city to attend The U of M would mean a "tougher place." But he has not experienced anything to make Memphis seem worse than Jonesboro.
Myers said an important part of making campuses safer each year is sharing information.
"We do a lot of sharing with the Memphis Police Department and other schools to keep up," he said.
Overall, the TBI report says that even though larceny and theft are the largest problems still plaguing colleges, the category had a 10.2 percent drop from 2003 to 2004.
But problems do still exist among universities in Tennessee. The TBI report says there were 59 more DUI and drunkenness incidents over 2003 statewide and drug incidents have increased 33.2 percent.
