Brief: Most common campus crime -- burglary

Friday, December 11, 2015 - 13:06 StudyHall.Rocks

Don't get careless -- lock that dorm door. On college campuses, burglary is the most common crime. Stock illustration.

As a college student, you are most likely to become a victim of: A) Auto theft, when someone becomes envious of your 1987 Mazda; B) Burglary, when your free-spirited roommate leaves the dorm room unlocked; or C) Assault, when a student brings a gun on campus and starts firing.

     The answer is B) Burglary.
     So-called “active shooter” cases have been in the news lately. Indeed, a shooting at an Oregon community college in October left 10 people dead, the gunman among them. And recently, the president of a Virginia school, Jerry Falwell Jr. of Liberty University, made headlines by announcing that school policy was changing, and students with concealed-carry permits would be allowed to have guns in residence halls. [See the school's news release here.]
     But, in fact, students are far more likely to be victimized by burglary, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. The center’s most recently reported numbers are from 2012, when 29,500 criminal incidents against people and property at public and private two-year and four-year colleges were reported to police agencies. This was a 4 percent decrease from 2011, when there were 30,700 incidents, the center reported.
     The vast majority of 2012 incidents were burglaries -- 18,100 cases, or 61 percent of all criminal incidents.Other reported crimes include:

Forcible sex offense: 3,900 incidents.
Motor vehicle theft: 3,000 incidents.
Aggravated assault: 2,400 incidents.
Robbery: 1,400 incidents.
Murder: Eleven murders occurred on college campuses in 2012, fewer than the 16 that occurred in 2011.

    Go to college: What are your plans after high school? In a recent viral video, Jay Pharoah of Saturday Night Live, is joined by the first lady, Michelle Obama, in a hilarious, but undeniably catchy rap, “Go to College.”
    Pharoah, now in his sixth season at SNL, is a Virginia native known for his impression of the first lady’s husband, Barack Obama. The first lady, a bundle of well-fueled energy, is the down-to-earth, in-the-garden icon for schoolchildren across the nation.
    Their rap is well-timed. The dropout rate has tumbled from “12 percent in 1990 to 7 percent in 2013, with most of the decline occurring since 2000,” reports the National Center for Education Statistics. The rate for Hispanic students is 12 percent, the rate for black students is 7 percent and the rate for white students is 5 percent.
     Pharoah studied business at Tidewater Community College and Virginia Commonwealth University, according to The Washington Post, while fine-tuning his stand-up skills at local clubs and trying out for SNL. The first lady is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School.


     Related:

Report: Is college worth the cost?

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