High-profile crimes, such as the shootings at Windermere Place Apartments, armed robberies at Marsh Street and burglaries at Kensington Apartments have raised the question of whether crime has increased at Ball State University.
Yearly statistics are gathered by all universities and colleges for on-campus crime, but all of the above crimes occurred off-campus and are not counted.
There is no official report to measure off-campus crimes, and as a result, it's difficult to measure how safe a campus is, Catherine Bath, executive director of Security on Campus, Inc., said.
Security on Campus, Inc. is a non-profit organization founded to support the 1998 Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act, which requires that schools gather statistics of crimes that occur on campus.
The purpose of the Clery Act is to inform students about the crime occurring on campus, allowing them to see what types of crimes occur and where they occur, she said.
Bath said she has heard talk about expanding the requirements to include off-campus areas, but she does not expect those changes to be made soon.
"I think personally I would like to see the parameters expanded a little bit," Bath said. "If you follow crime on college campuses a lot of stuff happens at the apartments just off campus."
Director of Public Safety Gene Burton said that although he did not have any statistics, he thought there was more crime activity occurring off-campus than on-campus at Ball State.
Bath said some universities provide numbers for off-campus statistics, but that is rarely the case since universities do not want to appear to have more crime than universities that don't report off-campus crime.
"They only really want to do what they are required by law and don't want to make themselves look more dangerous than they have to," Bath said.
She said she felt when universities don't report off-campus crimes, they fail to give an accurate representation of the safety of campus.
She said one of the problems with expanding reporting to include off-campus areas is deciding which off-campus areas to include.
"You could really get into some gray areas," she said. "It's not so clear cut with campuses in the middle of a city."
S. Daniel Carter, vice president for Security on Campus, Inc., said because each campus community is different the decision about which areas to include in off-campus reporting would be subjective and inconsistent from university to university.
Burton said in off-campus areas, non-university police agencies, like the Muncie Police Department, may take calls, complicating statistics gathering.
Carter said local law enforcement agencies outside of universities are not required to provide schools with information on crimes related to students.
Bath said some schools, such as Harvard University, are fighting the law and said they should not have to provide as much as information as the Clery Act requires.
"Back in the day colleges would keep all of their campus crime a secret and give the illusion that it was an 'ivory tower' situation," she said. "So we came on the scene to get the [Clery] act passed. You shouldn't go off to college and think that nothing is going to happen here."
Burton said he did not think there was more crime at Ball State this semester than previously.
"I don't think there has been an increase in crime, but there have been a couple of incidents that have been more newsworthy," he said.
Muncie Police Detective Lt. Al Williams said he has seen a spike in the number of home invasions, namely armed robberies.
"We've had more [home invasions] in the last couple months than we had in the last two to three years," Williams said. "We usually see one or two a year. We saw four or five here in the last couple of months."
Other than robbery, Williams said Muncie's crime rate was normal in 2006.
Bath said students should explore prospective campuses when visiting them to see how well-lit the campus is, if blue emergency lights are around and if a police presence is noticeable.
The high-profile nature of this semester's crime has some students concerned about their safety.
Senior Allison Babb, who lives at Windermere, said the shootings there have her concerned.
"After that I have been a little timid walking around anywhere by myself on or off campus," she said. "So now I am questioning if it is really safe to live at Windermere apartments. These are the things I shouldn't be worrying about."
Burton said students should try not to walk alone and should stay in well-lit areas when walking at night. A free campus escort service is available to students from 6:30 a.m. to 3 a.m. The number for the service is (765) 760-RIDE and it will take students anywhere on campus, he said.
In addition, 15 emergency phones around campus, marked by blue lights, provide a direct line to university police. Students shouldn't hesitate to use those, Burton said.
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