You might have recently heard that MSU was ranked the most dangerous college campus in the country. You might have also heard MSU officials and spokespeople claiming that MSU was actually one of the safest college towns in the country. While statistics and arbitrary rankings might make for interesting reports, they do not get to the big issue — is MSU’s campus a safe place for its students?
When looking at the log of reported crimes out out by the MSU Police, one would notice that a majority of the crime classifications include liquor violation, minors-in-possession and marijuana offenses. While the numbers might be high and the offenses might be frequent, one would have to argue very much that MIPs make a campus ‘dangerous.'
In Crime Watch Daily’s ranking, three of the most prominent categories were burglaries, robberies and assaults which understandably sound bad. However, based off regular meetings between The State News staff members and MSU police Sgt. Florene McGlothian-Taylor regarding police reports, they are rarely as bad as those words make them sound.
For example, one case in late August classified as a burglary involved a female student leaving her door unlocked when an unknown man walked in, started using the computer, said he was in the wrong room and quickly left.
One case classified as assault from last week involved a resident of West McDonel Hall trying to wake his roommate, first by shaking him, then by throwing a book at him causing a minor abrasion. Apparently, the roommate talked in his sleep and was disturbing the other, which escalated into what was classified as “felonious assault.”
However, it would be foolish to deny dangerous crimes have taken place on campus.
Any brief look into past State News articles and local reports would show MSU has been home to a number of violent crimes including carjackings, assaults and murders. While these incidents have occurred in East Lansing and directly on MSU’s campus, they occur few and far between.
A number of measures are in place on campus to ensure student’s feeling of safety while living in the area. Roads on campus are well-lit, there are services to escort students back to their dorms at later hours and green-lit emergency phones are installed at several locations for anyone who may ever feel in danger.
On game days, when people from all over the state and sometimes all over the country come to East Lansing, every MSU police officer is required to be on duty in some capacity. Vehicles and mounted officers patrol the entire area in an effort to prevent any fans from causing harm to themselves or others.
An issue the local police report is that when the significant crimes do occur on campus, the perpetrators are typically not students. With a campus so ingrained into a local, well-established city, residents from the surrounding areas tend to cause trouble on campus just as much as those who live in the residence halls.
While MSU’s campus is in no way an idealistic safe haven, to call it ‘the most dangerous college campus in the country’ is a bit of an over statement. The ranking from CrimeWatchDaily.com should be taken with a grain of salt, as should most aggregated rankings. Before any parents far from East Lansing get concerned, they should take a look at real crime reports.
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