Monthly Archives: April 2009

Long-time EMUTalk.org commentator “Alum” sent me some crime statistic data a while ago, and I am just now procrastinating long enough from the work I should be doing during finals week finding the time to make this available here. It’s interesting stuff.

Here’s a chart that breaks down the data, comparing EMU to other state universities in Michigan:

Here is a link to a slightly bigger version of this chart (in case it’s not as easy to read as would be ideal).

Here is the “fine print” Alum provided with this chart:

Burglary is the unlawful entry of a structure to commit a felony or a theft.

Illegal Weapons Possession is defined as the violation of laws or ordinances prohibiting the manufacture, sale, purchase, transportation, possession, concealment, or use of firearms, cutting instruments, explosives, incendiary devices or other deadly weapons. This classification encompasses weapons offenses that are regulatory in nature.

Robbery is the taking or attempting to take anything of value from the care, custody, or control of a person or persons by force or threat of force or violence and/or by putting the victim in fear.

Larceny is the illegal taking and carrying away of personal property belonging to another with the purpose of depriving the owner of its possession. Note that several of EMU burglaries were classified as larceny prior to the Dickenson Murder.

Reliability of the above data: 99% of the Criminal Offenses for 2007 is taken from the U.S. Dept. Education Web site. The arrest data is from University Web sites.

In looking at all of the data sets there are multiple sites, multiple tables, and subsets of data that become very confusing. Other than the Cleary Reports, which are sometimes difficult to find (Wayne State’s is either not there, or it’s buried somewhere), crime data and how it’s presented does not appear to be uniform. I have the same for minority/racial data, which also seems to lag behind one to two years. The best source of racial/minority data is the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). Please be aware that there are many crimes that are classified as being reported to other authorities on campus, rather than the police. I have not researched every U. in regard to this, however, U of M’s Student Affairs Office handles sexual harassment issues that could also be considered sexual criminal conduct.

Besides the obvious argument of this data– that is, crime at EMU is for the most part lower or comparable to other institutions– I’d like to make two other observations:

• This all seems pretty reliable to me, but I am presenting this as data that hasn’t been collected and/or verified by me personally. Take with some grain of salt.
• The biggest crime problem on campus is clearly burglary. This brings up two other issues that we’ve talked a great deal about in the recent past on EMUTalk.org. First, there is the infamous missing/lost keys issue which clearly contributes to this high number. Second, there is also clearly a problem with people forgetting to lock their doors to offices, dorm rooms, and (I guess this counts for this) cars. Now, I don’t know the percentages here, but I do know that an unlocked door makes for a pretty easy petty theft. So lock ‘em up, people!