Students listed rape and sexual assault as their top safety concern, despite the fact that few have been reported on campus, according to a fall 2006 survey released by Public Safety officials at Syracuse University.

‘There are a lot of date rape incidents on campus, but burglary and robbery should be the number-one concern,’ said senior Anna Bercaw, president of SU’s College Crime Watch. ‘I was shocked that it went in that order.’ College Crime Watch, a small student organization, pitched the idea for the survey to Public Safety’s Sgt. Jill Lentz, the group’s adviser.

Between 2004 and 2006, 64 assaults, robberies and attempted robberies were reported, according to a Public Safety report. Twenty-one sex offenses were reported in the same time period.

Students listed burglary and robbery, assault, a lack of Public Safety presence, and walking alone at night, both on and off SU’s campus, as other safety concerns.

The results of the fall 2006 survey, which was conducted to see if students felt safe on campus, were presented to the Student Association Assembly Feb. 5, and will soon be posted on the Office of Residence Life’s Web site.

‘The real problem with sexual assaults is really around so-called ‘date rape,” said Interim Chief Tony Callisto of Public Safety. ‘This is within some relationship, and one party goes way further than the other party wants them to.’

A total of 10 reported sex offense crimes occurred on university property in 2006, according to a Public Safety report. This is an increase from two in 2004 and nine in 2005.

The timing of the survey contributed to the results, Callisto said.

In August 2006, a stranger-rape occurred in the neighborhood just east of SU’s campus. The man had been out of prison for one day before committing the rape, Callisto said.

In some areas, the questions on the survey didn’t lead to information as precise as Public Safety had hoped, said Eric Nestor, coordinator for assessment, operations and technology at the Office of Residence Life. Nestor was responsible for refining the questions, distributing the survey by e-mail and evaluating the results.

‘Sometimes asking questions can be tricky; you’ve got to make sure they’re worded the right way,’ Nestor said.

Questions about rape and sexual assault didn’t ask respondents to specify between stranger and date rape. In addition, 12.7 percent of students said they have carried personal safety devices, but weren’t able to specify what devices because of how the survey was written, Nestor said.

‘It’d be nice if we could narrow this down a little bit more,’ Callisto said. ‘We would have liked more data.’

This is the first survey of its kind Public Safety has conducted, Callisto said. It wasn’t modeled after similar studies at other universities.

Burglary or robbery was the second most common response when students were asked about their top safety concern. Twenty-seven percent of students reported rape or sexual assault; 26 percent reported burglary or robbery.

‘We want to know how students feel threatened on campus,’ Bercaw said.

The survey addressed student perception, Callisto said. Public Safety can use the results to modify policies involving education, perception and visibility of officers.

‘From my perspective, there’s a real clear connection between alcohol use and incidents,’ Callisto said. ‘People need to think about what they’re doing, when they’re doing it, and that excessive alcohol could put them in danger.’

Part of the cause for concern involving rape and robbery may be due to news alerts that are sent by e-mail to members of the campus community when a violent crime occurs.

But Callisto said, ‘Our goal is not to alarm people; it’s to alert people.’

In the future, follow-up reports will be sent so community members know when suspects have been arrested and charged, to avoid hypersensitivity to crime, he said.

After the rape in August, students interviewed on television said Public Safety is ‘everywhere,’ Callisto said. But in the survey, 21 percent of respondents identified a lack of Public Safety presence on campus as their top safety concern.

More than 83 percent were also unaware of Adopt-a-Hall and RSVP Crime Prevention, programs Public Safety offers to increase patrol visibility and reduce the risk of students becoming victims of crimes.

‘We can’t be everywhere at once, so you’ve got to be partners with us in your personal safety,’ Callisto said.

A lack of Public Safety officers is a perception, not a reality, he said. At least 8 patrols on or around campus cover only a few blocks each. That figure is above normal guidelines for a community of 25,000 people and 1,000 acres.

‘If they really look around, there isn’t a lack of presence on campus – DPS is always around,’ Bercaw said. ‘People just don’t notice.’

Visibility is the issue, Callisto said. The Adopt-a-Hall program is an effort to increase officer’s relationships with students as a regular part of the job. The program was designed for officers who showed interest to volunteer to spend time in residence halls, serve as a resource for students and engage them in activities to increase education about personal safety.

The initial policy wasn’t designed with a written list of expectations, Callisto said.

‘It didn’t roll out into a regular communication and regular interaction opportunity, and that’s really what it needs to be,’ he said.

But students also said they feel unsafe in areas off SU’s campus, where Public Safety officers have little jurisdiction and Syracuse police hold enforcement authority.

‘It really came out very clearly if you look at that list, that they’re concerned about the east neighborhood, the south side area and the areas around the dome,’ Nestor said of the students surveyed. These are also areas with poor lighting.

Chancellor Nancy Cantor has already established a committee to look into the light situation in the East neighborhood, Callisto said. The first phase the committee plans to enact rewards landlords and homeowners for installing porch lights that are light sensitive – meaning they automatically turn on when the sun goes down.

‘When you look at any city, the lighting for those streets is typically for the road, not for the sidewalk,’ Callisto said. Ample lighting can prevent crimes from happening because burglars often need darkness to strike and avoid getting caught.

More than 34 percent of those surveyed also said they felt most unsafe between midnight at 6 a.m., when it is dark and there are few people around.

‘We now have the information that says students don’t feel safe when it’s dark out, rather than saying we believe students don’t feel safe,’ Nestor said.

The study didn’t involve students living in off-campus areas.

‘Off-campus students are a little more concerned about safety,’ Bercaw said. They deal more with the issues of theft and vandalism. These students also don’t necessarily know their neighbors, compared to students living in dorms, which made up most of the survey.

If off-campus students were included, the survey would probably skew the results to show that being off campus is even more dangerous, said senior Ryan Kelly, president of Student Association.

Burglary and robbery would be higher concerns, Kelly said.

‘People need to remember that there are other areas in the city that are worse, so city resources often go elsewhere,’ Kelly said, referring to Syracuse police.

Preventative measures as a result of the survey will include handing out shrill whistles on lanyards, encouraging self-defense classes and expanding the blue light system, Callisto said.

At next year’s orientation, all first-year students will be given the whistles. Public Safety officers and Residence Life employees will also ask the students to save Public Safety’s emergency number, #SU or #78, in their cell phones.

‘Hopefully students will see that this is a serious thing,’ Kelly said. ‘Don’t be the boy that cried wolf.’ While the whistles may be misused, students should understand their value as a safety device, he said.

Kelly equated the whistles to the blue light call boxes, which are scattered across campus and allow students to directly call Public Safety.

Blue lights serve more for prevention than a method to call for help, which is part of the reason Public Safety is making an effort to get their emergency number programmed into incoming-students’ cell phones, Callisto said. A blue light hasn’t been used to report an ongoing crime in three years, Callisto said.

A student taking a self-defense class, like the blue lights, serves better as a preventative measure than in response to an incident, he said.

‘Merely taking the class itself increases the awareness of personal safety habits,’ Callisto said. The classes teach students how to avoid situations where they might actually be victims, as well as escape moves.

Bercaw initially wanted to conduct an informal survey by asking passing students at the Schine Student Center to participate, but Lentz suggested going to Nestor, who had the experience and necessary software to conduct a more comprehensive study, Lentz said.

Lentz and Bercaw designed an 18-question survey in summer 2006. Nestor then revised the questions and distributed the survey by e-mail to more than 1,500 students living in the university’s residence halls and apartments. Only 17.1 percent, or 256, of those surveyed responded with usable data, Nestor said.

‘The return rate actually was not bad,’ Nestor said. ‘It’s misleading initially to see a response rate that appears to be that low – certainly we like to see it about 20, 30 percent.’

Demographic information such as ethnicity, gender and expected year of graduation were proportional to the campus, however the results valid, Nestor said.

‘There would be times when I’d be a little more concerned about 17 percent, but in this survey, I think the topic helped – it helped encourage students to participate.’

The Office of Residence Life has been conducting similar e-mail surveys since 1997, he said. Though it is usually difficult to get students living in apartments on South Campus to participate, there was a 25 percent response rate from that group.

South Campus apartments have sliding glass back doors at ground level, making break-ins potentially easier for burglars. During Winter Break, a burglar used a street post to break the door and enter the apartment.

In a campus setting, students form a false idea of how safe the real world is, and those who continue unsafe habits after leaving campus are more likely to be the victims of crimes, Bercaw said.

Callisto and Lentz approached Student Association and asked to present the survey’s results at an assembly meeting, Kelly said.

Safety is one of the three pillars – which also include diversity and life on South Campus – the association is planning to tackle in the next year, said Kelly, who declares himself ‘defender of the students.’

Students must be accountable for themselves and make smart decisions, Kelly said.

‘There’s only so much DPS can do beside hold your hand,’ Kelly said.

Published on February 21, 2007 at 12:00 pm