Violent crimes at Ball State University decreased from 2006 to 2007, according to the FBI Uniform Crime Report, which released its 2007 findings in September.
Five forcible rapes were reported in 2007 compared to 13 in 2006. According to the bureau's statistics, the five forcible rapes was equal to Indiana University-Bloomington, and more than Purdue University. Purdue's enrollment is more than double Ball State's enrollment of about 20,000. IU's almost doubles it.
Reported instances of aggravated assault and burglary decreased and were less than both IU and Purdue. The FBI's statistics showed that the number of robberies and vehicle thefts reported at Ball State University increased from 2006 to 2007.
Three robberies and five vehicle thefts were reported in 2007 compared to one robbery and three vehicle thefts the previous year. Purdue also had three robberies and one vehicle theft while IU had eight robberies and 15 vehicle thefts.
The bureau's crime reporting program is a cooperative, voluntary reporting effort of more than 17,000 city, university and college, county, state, tribal and federal law enforcement agencies, according to the FBI Web site.
Senior creative writing major, James Jones, said he has always felt safe on campus and has not seen a lot of crime.
"[The University Police Department is] fairly stringent," he said. "They're definitely good security."
Director of Public Safety, Gene Burton, said he had not seen 2007 crime statistics for Ball State and the university was in the process of compiling the 2007 Campus Crime Statistics to comply with the Clery Act, which requires universities disclose information about crime on and around their campuses. Burton said without knowing any specific statistics, he did not notice any major shifts from the 2006 data.
David Fried, Ball State's Clery Compliance officer as well as the director of student rights and community standards at the university, said he hoped to post the 2007 statistics on Ball State's Web site within the next week. The deadline to post the information is Oct. 13.
Campus Crime Statistics are sent to the FBI monthly, according to the University Police Web site.
He said he began collecting data for the report in August from UPD and various outside law enforcement agencies around Muncie, as well as multiple departments at Ball State.
UPD's law enforcement efforts are similar to any municipal or university department, Burton said. The majority of its manpower is in uniformed officers. Its main goal is the prevention and deterrence of crime. The department examines crime data every year and changes its methods to increase efficiency, he said.
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