Routine Activity Theory And Social Disorganization Theory

Majority of the studies criticizes the slow response and poor procedures that universities had in place in preparation to a serious violent incident. For example, in Campus Violence Preparedness of US College Campuses by Seo et al (2012), discovers that students do not understand emergency procedures of their campuses, many colleges do not see the importance of emergency drills, and do not practice these drills. It finds the Virginia Tech shooting, universities have improved their safety measures and are able to notify students about a violence incident within 5 minutes of occurrence (Seo et al., 2012). The methods employed in this study are an online survey and statistical analysis of data

What can one learn from this violent tragedy, what mistakes did this instance have that can help evade other similar instances? It is commonly believed that there is no such thing as bad publicity, but maybe some schools would disagree with this statement, and take publicity more seriously than the welfare of their faculty, staff, and students. A school with a debauched reputation is not going to receive countless applicants, but is that a valid justification for not reporting disturbances and protecting their students? I believe that if turbulences exist, like a student threatening or shooting at people, schools should warn the cops right away. Mary Hoeft, a professor of communication arts and French at the University of Wisconsin – Barron County, wrote “Professors in the Crosshairs,” an article about incidents that have occurred at her school that should have been associated with the police. Hoeft addressed a situation that occurred at her school, where a disturbed young female student raged down the campus, yelling that she wanted to kill her English professor by aging her 120 years with a magic umbrella; luckily, the professor was out of town at a conference with

Date rapes, hate crimes and theft have become an apparent concern on college campuses. The most disturbing crime on a college campus is a school shooting. Being a victim of any crime is the last thing any student or parent thinks of when choosing a college or university. The possibilities of danger on a college campus have been increasing over the years due to the reported crimes ranging from theft to murder. Because of the recent years of college campus reported shootings, both student and parent have become alarmingly concerned about

“One in five women are sexually assaulted while in college” (Not Alone, 2014). In our class of twenty women that means that possibly five women have been sexually assaulted. Out of the five women that I stated could have been sexually assaulted they may have known the perpetrator and often will not report what has happened. According to the spring count of students completed by West Chester University, 9,211 of those students were females (“Headcount Enrollment”, 2014). If I go by the statistic mentioned earlier that one in five women is assaulted that would mean that 1,842 women have been sexually assaulted while enrolled at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. Out of 1,842 possible assaults only four were reported last year. Two of which the victims knew prior to the assault. Rankin and Associates consulting conducted a Climate Assessment on West Chester University in September of 2010, a section of the results focused on sexual assault on students. According to the report seven people who reported a sexual assault to the university described their reactions to the universities response. Two students shared the way they felt the response was inappropriate or poor. One described that they felt the suspension for one semester was not an appropriate response to an admitted rape, that public safety lost the victims statement, judicial affairs painted the victim offender as innocent, and that the registrar protected the offender putting the victim in harm’s way and everyone

Summary: The article “Rhode Island Schools Report 18% Increase in Sexual Assaults” Arditi explains to us of the unfortunate rise in sexual assault at universities in the Rhode Island area. She gives us statistical evidence of reports by journals and newspapers. These statistics showed an increase of 65 sexual assaults by 11 schools near Providence and a 40 percent increase for 29 New England schools (Arditi). These sexual assaults are due to many conditions of the college, such as, its size, location, culture, and how well it deals with reports of the abuse. Colleges have a rising problem of victims failing to report crimes that were committed upon them. Along with problems with reports, sharing information between law enforcement and college student affairs was an increasing issue. Universities and colleges were not required to share data until a White House task force recommended that these institutions sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)

The Campus SaVE Act seeks to address the violence women face on campus: the highest rates of stalking, the highest risk of nonfatal intimate partner violence, and 20-25% of female students experiencing rape or attempted rape. This legislation will update the Jeanne Clery Act to

In 1986, Jeanne Clery was 19 years old living on the campus of Lehigh University. Clery was tortured, raped, and murdered in her dormitory. Both she and her parents thought she was safe, unbeknownst to them, Lehigh University had a high statistic for violent crimes. People believed the history of crime would be a known fact about the university, however, there were no standards for reporting of campus crime events. After the murder of their daughter, Connie and Howard Clery took to Capitol Hill to lobby for change. This paper will discuss the background of the Jeanne Clery Act, how the act came to be, the perception of the act and how well it was received, as well as the impact it had on higher education.

On April 16th 2007 at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, a student with psychological problems began a two hour killing spree that left 33 dead (Reader). The massacre that occurred at this school is now the worst recorded incident in the history of the United States and eclipses the University of Texas massacre of 1966. In the wake of tragedies like these, students, teachers and administrators propose more measures to make us feel safe on campus. But why weren't these measures in place before? School administrators and police have a responsibility to protect their students and faculty on campus, and these instances clearly shown a lack of fulfilling that responsibility. And yet several campus' refuse to allow law-abiding and

On the topic of sexual assault on campuses, Catherine Lhamon, Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights and James Moore, Compliance Manager of the Clery Act discussed ways to further combat sexual assault on college campuses. Lhamon and Moore focused on the improvements made to the reporting of sexual assault, positive changes made to the judicial proceedings on campuses, and the improved punishment of perpetrators. The members of the committee hearing did not deny the importance of combating sexual assault. However, members did disagree on the methods to effectively decrease sexual assault and increase overall reporting of victims. Members disagreed the most on the enforcement mechanism, which was made more controversial by the differences in opinion on the accuracy of reporting, and the guidance authority of the Department of Education. This ballot will address the panel discussion on these

As students embark on the journey that is college many new obstacles are bound to come their way, but yet, safety and security should never be the reason for fear in a student. It is becoming more clear that college campus shootings can happen and Gary Pavela and James Alan Fox have outlined the reasons why previous shootings have caused problems within college administration in modern times. Due to research on capmus shootings college administration has increased their safety measures in the wrong ways. College campuses have hindered the well-being of students then and now because administrative teams are attempting to make safety their first priority, , but in turn actually enlisting fear into student’s minds.

‘Sexual Violence is more than just a crime against individuals. It threatens our families; it threatens our communities. Ultimately, it threatens the entire country’ (qtd. in Burleigh pg. 2). In the article, “Confronting Campus Rape” written by Nina Burleigh; a writer, journalist, and professor at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, describes what students are doing to force universities to take a stronger stand against campus sexual assault. Moreover Burleigh describes what the government is doing to make a difference on the issue. This includes laws that have created consequences for the assaulter and laws that protect the victim. According to Burleigh, a young woman called Laura Dunn was sexually assaulted on campus. Dunn was a student of UW. On April 4th, 2014, Dunn lost her virginity to two UW athletes. That night, Dunn was attending a party at the university. Dunn was enjoying the party and lost count of her alcohol intake. Dunn remembers being led out by two older teammates, who she knew. Dunn was very intoxicated, enough to stumble on her way back to what she thought would be another campus party, as one of the athletes helped her walk. The athletes led Dunn to one of their apartments where she found herself on a bed with both of them on top of her. Dunn was so intoxicated that she couldn’t help but to drift in and out of conscious leaving her unable to stop the two men. Dunn began to feel sick and was led to the bathroom by one of the athletes, where he penetrated her from behind while she was throwing up. That was a date Dunn would never forget. Dunn like many other women at the UW have been sexually abused by other students. Although Dun’s incident is shocking, it is not uncommon for women to be sexually assaulted on campus. A woman at the  university of Wisconsin is more prone to being sexually assaulted than any other woman in the country because of alcohol intoxication; this is a problem that must be resolved.

Clery Act is the act to disclose the information about campus crimes, and Title IX is the law that prohibits discrimination to students in education institutions. They are related to campus sexual assault because campuses are often discriminating the rape victims by silencing them, and they also do not cooperate to find the assaulter.

“Colleges and universities occupy a special place in American society. They are much more than a series of buildings and collection of individuals. Instead, they are dynamic living and learning environments where individuals with varying levels of maturity interact, often under stressful circumstances. While recognizing the right of responsible individuals to possess firearms under other circumstances, the unique characteristics of a university campus make the presence of firearms problematic. The shootings that have occurred in recent years at US colleges and universities have generated passionate debate about how best to prevent such violence and whether persons should be allowed to carry concealed guns on campuses. Experts believe there is no credible evidence that students or staff carrying guns would reduce crime. In fact, research has shown that the brains of most college students have not fully developed regarding impulse control and judgment” (Dickerson). Therefore, guns should not be allowed on college campuses because it would lead to an escalation in violent crime, distract from the learning environment, and lead to accidental discharge incidents.

Safety is a tremendous issue on college campuses, and additional procedures need to be taken to prevent crimes from happening. When walking onto a college campus as a young adult, people get a rush of the unknown. The unknown could be going to college parties and late night study groups. College should be like any high school or elementary school and have better security measures to protect their students. The reasons we need these extra steps are to prevent violence, give students a sense of security, and monitor visitors on campus.

Before exploring the process of constructing campus crime as a social issue, Sloan III and Fisher (2011) found it necessary to report on the history of campus crime in American universities as the majority of the public assumes that campus crime is a relatively new phenomenon when in fact, campus crimes has been a prominent (yet not very visible) issue since the founding of the