Addressing the increase in crime

Photo Courtesy of Georgia Tech Communications

The past few Clery Acts have highlighted the greater prevalence of crime on Tech’s campus within this past academic year.  While the GTPD townhall did begin to address these issues, there  is still a variety of on-campus crimes which many students are not aware of.

Since 2012, crime rates at Tech have increased in most non-violent fields, with the 2014 Campus safety report  showing an increase in both motor vehicle thefts and burglaries.

Often, these types of crimes do not get immediately dispersed to faculty and students because they do not fall into the required Clery Act reporting categories. In all fairness, if GTPD were to report every last crime to the students like a Clery Act, it would likely create an over-heightened sense of panic among the student body in an already anxious campus.

However, for instance, if there were a string of car break-ins, it would benefit students to be aware of the issue. To some extent, both Clery Act and non-Clery Act crimes would be more preventable if students were more informed on known dangers in the area. Behaviors, such as where students park their cars, can easily be altered to ensure the safety of students, faculty, as well as keeping their belongings as safeguarded as possible.

Rather than let rumors run amuck and have these instances go over-dramatized, being direct and open about the current trends of crime happening throughout campus will keep students and faculty alert and, hopefully, more at ease.

While GTPD has certainly made an effort through things such as a town hall on the issue, information is provided sporadically, and in few places, sometimes just on reddit. It is in everyone’s best interest to create and informed student body, in an effort to both reduce risk and increase campus safety as a whole.

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