crime wave hits yale campus

posterX
Wed, 18 Jul 2007 22:01:07 +0000

New Haven has had 7 homicides so far this year, all involving people with a history of drugs or violent crime and mostly very far away from the downtown area. Compare that with, just so far this year, about 20 in Hartford, 40 in Boston, 176 in Baltimore, 200+ in NY City, and 221 so far this year in Philadelphia (as of yesterday, that is), many of which are random, unsolved robberies and killings, some of them right on the college campuses in those cities. Overall, Yale is actually one of the safest Ivies, and downtown New Haven is now a much more vibrant college town than any of the other immediate Ivy surroundings. The only problem with downtown New Haven is that it is starting to become like Harvard Square, i.e., too expensive for students and geared too much towards millionaires. Europeans are flying in to buy million dollar lofts, and dozens of the newer restaurants look like they were shipped over from Ibiza. Of course, there are still tons of student friendly places, but some Yale people and others who live there get a bit worried each time they drop $200 on dinner.

Regarding crime, you shouldn’t just expect it if you go to an urban college. You should take security precautions no matter what campus you are on. Actually, often rural campuses attract weirdos from the surrounding farm country looking for college students to prey on, and they unfortunately can find it easier in such places where people have their guard down a bit more. Cornell, Dartmouth, and many other more “rural” or suburban schools have had their share of killings, attacks and rapes too. Furthermore, students commit crimes against each other too, in particular thefts and date rape. Just look at Va Tech if you have any doubts.

And that’s even before you consider the dangers of going to a school where you might want to drive more often to get anywhere – keep it in perspective that car accidents kill literally thousands of college students across the country per year, whereas violent crime kills just a dozen or two. Because of that factor I would say that, for example, a suburban school where students are likely to drive or get in a car once every 3 days to check out a movie, edge of campus frat, shopping mall, ski lodge or faraway grocery place is probably about 10 times more “dangerous” than an urban one where students are likely to drive about once every month. If you actually go and look at the stats on certain suburban campuses where students drive a lot you might find that to be a grave understatement.