Spring Break
Crime on campus falls in 2007, robbery drops 70 percent
John Coleman, Associate News Editor, jpcolema@smu.edu
Issue date: 10/1/08 Section: News
The SMU campus was a safer place in the past year as robberies dropped 70 percent in 2007 coupled with a 25 percent decrease in burglaries reported as well as an 80 percent drop in arson cases contributed to less campus crime, according to crime statistics released by the SMU police department on Monday.
The crime report was released in accordance with the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act. The report includes campus security policies, as well as statistics for the past three years about incidents occurring on or near campus.
The report showed a drop in robberies on campus from a reported 10 in 2006 to three in 2007. Robbery, as defined by the report, is the taking of anything of value from the custody of someone else by force. This is compared to burglary, which is the unlawful entry of a structure, and theft of items, which saw a drop from 40 reported cases in 2006 to 30 in 2007.
SMU Police Chief Richard Shafer attributes the drops to the ability of police officers to do their job more efficiently.
"Last year we took away the responsibilities of parking enforcement from the SMU police officers and with that the police were able to do more policing," Shafer said. "The fact that police officers were more concentrated on preventing crimes and don't have to fool around with writing parking tickets, I believe has had an impact."
Motor vehicle thefts have also seen a reduction in the last year, dropping 13 percent. Shafer said many of these reported incidents involved SMU golf carts and people taking them for joy rides rather than actual student and faculty vehicle thefts. He said that we are quite lucky with Dallas having one of the highest auto theft rates in the nation, that the campus is able to experience such a low theft rate.
Shafer is glad to see improvement from his police force in preventing crime on campus but feels that there is still room to make the campus safer.
The crime report was released in accordance with the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act. The report includes campus security policies, as well as statistics for the past three years about incidents occurring on or near campus.
The report showed a drop in robberies on campus from a reported 10 in 2006 to three in 2007. Robbery, as defined by the report, is the taking of anything of value from the custody of someone else by force. This is compared to burglary, which is the unlawful entry of a structure, and theft of items, which saw a drop from 40 reported cases in 2006 to 30 in 2007.
SMU Police Chief Richard Shafer attributes the drops to the ability of police officers to do their job more efficiently.
"Last year we took away the responsibilities of parking enforcement from the SMU police officers and with that the police were able to do more policing," Shafer said. "The fact that police officers were more concentrated on preventing crimes and don't have to fool around with writing parking tickets, I believe has had an impact."
Motor vehicle thefts have also seen a reduction in the last year, dropping 13 percent. Shafer said many of these reported incidents involved SMU golf carts and people taking them for joy rides rather than actual student and faculty vehicle thefts. He said that we are quite lucky with Dallas having one of the highest auto theft rates in the nation, that the campus is able to experience such a low theft rate.
Shafer is glad to see improvement from his police force in preventing crime on campus but feels that there is still room to make the campus safer.
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