pomona crime rate

Arimyg
Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:23:00 +0000

actaully, according to [Pomona College Class of 2013 | Facebook](Redirecting...), President Oxtoby sent out the following email after being rated number one more dangerous school in america a few years back.

"To: The Pomona College Community

From: David Oxtoby,President

I am writing to let you know in advance about an article to appear on the Forbes.com Website later this week that will portray the College in a troubling and unfair light. Using the U.S. Department of Education campus crime statistics for the year 2005, a Forbes reporter is finalizing an article ranking American colleges according to the amount of crime reported on their campuses during that year. Depending upon how they parse the numbers, we may be listed in the top five for campuses with the most crime per capita – possibly even at number one.

Obviously, this runs counter our own experience – that this is an exceptionally safe campus. The main reasons for this unlikely ranking are twofold. First, the number of reported thefts at Pomona in 2005 was abnormally high – 71 as compared to 41 in 2004 and 33 in 2006. (A big part of this spike was due to one group of juveniles who were caught and
stopped.) Second, the number of reported “motor vehicle thefts” on our campus in 2005 was listed at 13. This misleading statistic includes 11 cases of unauthorized use of a golf cart.

I would stress that the safety of our campus community is not in question here. The number of thefts in 2005 was a genuine concern, not to be dismissed or minimized. However, it is important to note that reported crimes against people on our campus were virtually non-existent that year, and that they remain among the lowest in our peer group of colleges.
Paradoxically, our vulnerability to theft may be exacerbated by the fact that our students feel so safe on this campus that they sometimes neglect to lock their doors. We have been working to encourage them to take more reasonable precautions to safeguard their property, and we hope to continue to bring those numbers down in the future.

In reporting alleged criminal incidents, Pomona makes a strong effort to follow the letter of the reporting rules laid down by the Department of Education in compliance with the Clery Act. These rules specifically require campuses to report items involving golf carts and joy riding. We are also required to include any incident reported to campus security, even if no police report is ever filed.

In truth, I believe the article and chart to be printed in Forbes say more about the magazine’s methodology than they do about the relative security of Pomona’s campus. If Forbes’ intent was to identify campuses where personal security is a problem, then they have clearly failed. Pomona is, and will continue to be, a very safe place to live and work."