What sort of crimes happen on campus?
With the school year coming to an end, The Review collected statistics from the UVU Police reports and conducted a survey across campus to compare what crimes occur on campus to what students are aware of.
Each week The Review receives a crime log from the campus police department that details what crimes had occurred the previous week. Over the school year, The Review published several articles sharing those reports with students. However, in a short survey conducted in The Review, 95% of responding students and faculty shared that they did not feel well-informed about the different crimes that occur on campus.
In that same survey students and faculty were asked what types of crimes they considered most common. With an answering body of twenty-five, the most common crimes according to the survey had theft as the lead with a total percentage of 45%. Car crimes, which encapsulated crimes such as DUI and misdemeanors, ended in a total percentage of 27% with the third most voted category being violent crimes like assault and threatening at 13%.
The reports received by the police department had a total amount of crimes committed from Aug. 28, 2023, to the report received last week on April 15, 2024, as seventy-seven. Theft, according to the reports, was nineteen of that total, making up 24% of the crimes committed during the school year. Car-related crimes were 16% of the thirteen documented. Violent crimes, the third most voted, had seven reported crimes for 9%.
In a previous interview Jeff Long, deputy chief of police of UVU, offered a few tips to deter crimes from happening to students. He shared that situational awareness is the easiest defense against being a victim of crime. Long said he looked at his phone more than he should, but by being unaware students could make themselves crime targets. This tip is shared across multiple publications, such as Columbia University who agreed that increasing awareness even in places your most comfortable aid in protecting themselves.
If students need police assistance on campus, they can call campus police at?(801) 863-5555. Their email is?[email protected], which can be used to report any incident or campus crime. Students can also visit their office in the?Gunther Technology?building, Room 311.?
Wyatt joined the Review in 2023 as a Junior Reporter for News Team.
He’s a sophomore studying English to pursue a career in writing and publishing.