SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — A new report said Stanford and UC Berkeley have the highest campus crime rates per student in the state of California.
It comes from a report by the U.S. Department of Education and looked at numbers from 2012 to 2014. Stanford averaged about eight crimes per 1,000 students.
UC Berkeley was second on the list. It averaged a little more than three crimes per 1,000 students.
KRON reached out to both schools for a response.
Cal said it is actively doing something to cut down on crime, and the rate has gone down sharply over the past two years.
Here is Cal’s statement:
At Berkeley, we have dedicated substantial financial and human resources to educating students and building trust within the campus community so that people feel comfortable reporting incidents to us, and trust that there will be a quick and effective response when we learn of alleged criminal activity. So, higher instances of Clery-reported crimes have to be put in perspective even as our campus and our police force, the UCPD, continue to implement crime reduction strategies that are having notable success. Those strategies have resulted in a 12% decrease in violent crimes reported in 2015 as compared with 2014; a 24% reduction in property crimes during this same period; and an overall 23% reduction in all major crimes since 2014 – data that are in sharp contrast to national and local crime trends. While we believe the Berkeley campus is safe, we will never be complacent when it comes to the well-being of our students. We cannot avoid the fact that the university is situated in an urban environment, where crime remains a challenge, but we can, as we have, make concerted efforts to fight crime while educating and supporting the campus community we serve.
Stanford said its statistics are high because the campus is big and many of its faculty and students live on campus.
Here is Stanford’s statement:
Campus crime statistics at Stanford are heavily influenced by the highly residential nature of the campus. The campus covers more than 8,000 acres and includes a large faculty neighborhood in addition to the academic core. Nearly all undergraduate students, 55 percent of graduate students, and a large number of faculty members live on the campus itself, which is not the case at all universities. Therefore, crimes that typically occur in residential settings are reflected in our on-campus crime statistics.
Many of the reported crimes within the campus are for burglary. We also work to strongly encourage reporting of sexual offenses to the police.
We have smaller numbers of vehicle theft incidents, and these typically tend to be theft of golf carts that people use to get around the campus.
The university and its police force are committed to providing a campus environment in which all members of our community feel safe and secure. Our campus crime statistics, as well as extensive information about crime prevention and personal safety, are in our annual campus safety report available at http://web.stanford.edu/group/SUDPS/safety-report/Almanac.pdf.