Hadn’t thought of that. It’s interesting, isn’t it, how we tend to ignore the most prominent risk in our lives - driving - and obsess over activities much less likely to happen to us (e.g., serial killer, plane crash, terrorist attack, etc.).
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All 5 of these schools have Greek life on campus.
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However, the car crashes happen predominantly away from campus, so they may not be shown as campus-related deaths or injuries. Also, some commuter campuses are in places where the predominant commuting method is public transportation.
When my D26 was little, she went through a phase of worrying all the time about being killed by a meteor hitting the earth. We had many conversations about the relative risk of being killed by a meteor, vs. getting hit by a car while crossing the street, and other much more likely mishaps.
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The article I posted (one of four BTW) was from a Seattle news outlet in 2023. Presumably, at the time, UW was on the list and now they are not. Congrats. Did the journalist from Seattle have an agenda?
You said no one is afraid to walk around campus or the ave. The article from the UW student paper tells a different story. So, who is being hyperbolic?
Check out UW’a own Clery Report on crime and look at the Car Theft, Burglary, Stalking etc. You seem to deny that this is a campus issue but the report shows that it is happening on campus not just the Safeways.
You seem to think that pointing out crime is part of an “agenda”. You say crime isn’t so bad compared to X,Y,Z. Fair enough. It is bad enough for us.
And then this. UW student found dead at off-campus apartments after report of stabbing
Reminder to avoid unsubstantiated hyperbole, overly graphic details, politicized comments (several of which have been removed), and comments that appear to demonize groups of people, such as the homeless. Such comments may be edited or removed.
Overwhelmingly, the majority of crime on college campuses is related to alcohol or SA. Interested people should view any college’s Clery Report if they are very concerned about crime. All colleges that receive federal funding must provide this report. Most colleges have some sort of crime, whether it’s UCLA or Liberty U or Harvard.
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We seem to be passing each other in our comments. You seem to be interpreting my position as an assertion that the University of Washington is a crime-free paradise. It’s not. It’s smack in the middle of one of the most dense metro areas in the U.S. Of course there is crime. But what it’s not is some crazy urban war zone, which is the picture your description and subsequent comments paint. I disagree with that and I LIVE HERE, while you apparently do not. And, yes, I’ll say it again: people who live in and around Seattle typically don’t have any hesitation spending time in the U-District. The Burke-Gilman trail runs right through campus and is always full of walkers, runners and bikers. The campus itself is always full of people who come around to walk the grounds. It serves as the gathering place for many large public events, like the annual May Type 1 Diabetes “Beat the Bridge” fundraiser, which draws thousands who walk and run around campus to raise research money. It and its neighborhoods are not as you describe them to be. Sorry.
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Any further back and forth will result in more deleted posts and/or closing the thread. Feel free to dm each other but don’t derail the thread. This post isn’t about crime in Seattle. Thanks for your cooperation.
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Recent data show the school saw more than 100 reported rape cases from the years 2022 to 2024.
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Here’s the most recent Clery crime statistic detail for UCSB 2025 (which shows incidents from 2022-24).
This thread is a good reminder that people should be looking at the Clery reports of any college they are considering. Some people will tout how safe a campus’ area is, without considering how dangerous one’s classmates might be. One caveat…these numbers are likely underreported, and to compare across colleges, one should calculate per student crime rates.
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I mean, yeah, so many want to go to UCSB and yet that’s an insane # and as you note likely under reported. Crazy.
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Would a campus showing lower rates of rape and other sexual misconduct crimes actually have lower rates of such crimes, or lower rates of reporting such crimes?
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The Clery reports are a good idea. The US Dep’t of Ed has a website that allows you to compare up to 4 schools at a time and this is how U of Alabama, U of Arizona, UCSB and UW Seattle compare:
What’s interesting to note about this, though, is the relative population of these places.
Seattle Metro: 3.6 million +
Tucson Metro: 1 million +
Tuscaloosa Metro: 268,000
Santa Barbara County: 400,000+
When you consider the population differences and just some rudimentary statistics, it makes for an interesting comparison. For example, Alabama, Arizona and, yes, UCSB seem to have pretty decent incident rate of rape.
If you are proposing using the metro population as the denominator wouldn’t the numerator need to also include all of the other crime that happens off campus in the city? Isn’t the better comparison the enrollment? Maybe look at both.
Campus Crime / Campus Enrollment
Total Crime (Metro + Campus) / Total Population (Metro + Campus)
Your observation about UCSB still holds true.
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But this is on campus crime, not area - if I’m understanding properly.
So while local population can commit crimes as reported by the university, wouldn’t Bama’s 16 rates of 30K+ students be a lesser # than 43 at UCSB with - I didn’t look but likely a similar population. Wouldn’t 10 at UW - if similar sized - be even a more positive - although I hate to say positive when talking about that particular crime because one is too many.
I guess I’m asking - why would you look at metro size vs. school size or am I missing something?
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Sure, that would be important if you’re looking at moving to an area and are assessing total crime to total pop.
It’s difficult, though. For example, in Seattle, a lot of crime happens, say, in the White Center neighborhood over in West Seattle, which as you probably know is a good ways away from UW and thus has little or nothing to do with crime at UW.
The other issue is where the campuses are situated relative to the population centers. Some campuses are off on their own with a buffer of some kind between it and the city’s population. Others are right in the middle of it. UW, again as an example, is right in the heart of Seattle. I don’t recall how UofA is situated from Tucson and I’ve never been to Tuscaloosa.
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I’m not sure I understand why that would matter. If you’re being raped or assaulted, does it matter whether its by someone who is part of the campus community vs. someone who is at or around the school but doesn’t belong there? It wouldn’t to me. I mean, I think it’s safe to assume that the lion’s share of burglary at UW is being committed by non-UW students, but those crimes still show up in the data. Unless I’m wrong and UW is admitting a bunch of car thieves.
I’m just using the population numbers and assuming those surrounding populations have some effect on crime reported at the school. Using this data, I think you have concerning odds of being a rape victim at UCSB given the population.
Said another way, the more people, the more crime. I think that’s axiomatic. So, if you see 10 rapes at a school in a city of 300,000 and 10 rapes at a school in a city of 3 million, you assess that data differently.
Or maybe I’m the one missing something.
It does seem that rape and other sexual misconduct crimes are significantly underreported everywhere, if this survey is to be believed:
Page A7-5 (216 of the PDF) says that 9.5% of women undergraduate students reported non-consensual penetration since entering college, and 13.5% reported non-consensual sexual touching since entering college. For men undergraduate students (a few pages after), the percentages were 6.5% and 3.1%.
I’m sure that’s true.
I also believe, but cannot prove, that the likelihood of a victim reporting rape is affected by the social milieu in which the assault takes place, which really varies by type of school and student and by school location and region. I’m not going to get into that, which involves some generalizations, but I believe it to be true.
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Seatte is very soft on car theft.You needed 7 convictions before you went to jail. It was rampant and often gang related.