Crime Reduction - Helping to Reduce Crime in Your Area

University is frequently the first experience that young people have of living away from home. Consequently, students often have little background knowledge or experience of crime reduction measures. This, coupled with the concentration of portable high-value items (such as laptop computers and hi-fi systems) that students often own, makes them likely targets for property crime. The unpopularity of the student population in some towns may also make them targets for violent crime.

Title: University student safety
Authors: Rosemary Barberet, Bonnie S. Fisher, Graham Farrell and Helen Taylor
Series: Home Office Findings 194
Number of pages: 4
Date published: April 2003

Background

During the last few years, research in the UK has begun to focus on university students and their environments as persons and places for experiencing victimisation. The importance of safety and security issues on university campuses has been discussed in several reports, including the Home Office sponsored study (Campbell and Bryceland, 1998). Also a number of universities have been collaborating with local crime and disorder reduction partnerships to provide advice to students about preventing burglaries.

Students from seven higher education institutions across the East Midlands took part (this region was chosen due to the interest of the Crime Reduction Team of the Government Office of the East Midlands). The total number of students at each university ranged from around 1,000 to over 25,000, with most having around 14,000 students enrolled. Three of the campuses were in urban settings and four were in suburban locations.

Key Findings

• One-third of the student sample were victims of crime during the past year. Almost 12% were the victim of theft or attempted theft; 10% were the victim of burglary. Theft, criminal damage and burglary accounted for seven in ten crimes.

• Six in ten crimes were experienced by repeat victims – the most victimised 3% of students experienced over a quarter of all crimes.

• Just over 4% of students were stalked during the past year.

• Nearly 12% of students in private accommodation experienced a burglary compared with 5% of students who lived in university accommodation. Students who had been burgled were more likely to live in accommodation with fewer surveillance measures than those who had not.

• 60% of all incidents were not reported to the police.

• Students felt most fearful of having their property stolen on campus at night. They perceived the least risk and were least fearful of all forms of intimate partner violence.

Reducing student victimisation

• Crime prevention programmes and advice should be tailored to take into account student lifestyles. Universities should provide information to students about taking simple security precautions to help prevent them from being victims of the kind of property crime occurring where they live. Knowledge about local crime could help them decide where to live.

• Students should be encouraged, through campaigns sponsored by university security departments or the police, to purchase the most secure brands of portable goods and to mark their property.

• Private landlords should be encouraged to provide adequate security for student accommodation. University administered landlord accreditation schemes could assist with this process.

Download University Student Safety from the RDS website