CHRIS SEGAL
News Editor
Pepperdine is a relatively safe university — just look at the crime statistics.
All colleges and universities are required by the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act of 1990 to disclose campus-crime statistics. The most prevalent crime at Pepperdine in 2004, according to the most recent statistics available, is 19 incidents of burglary (forced entry into a building). The only other criminal offense was one case of aggravated assault.
Pepperdine has lower crime rates than other local universities. Travel a few miles south to Loyola Marymount University — there were 33 reported cases of burglary. LMU also offers students something that Pepperdine does not, the chance to have your vehicle stolen from campus. From 2002 to 2004, five vehicles have been stolen from the LMU campus and one was stolen from non-university property.
The University of Southern California had more than 20 cases of vehicle theft in 2004. USC had 164 criminal offenses compared to Pepperdine’s 20. Again burglary was the most reported offense with more than 80 counts of forced entry, in addition to the 35 counts of robbery and 19 forcible sex offenses.
There is no doubt that USC is a much bigger school than Pepperdine so it would have more incidents of crime. There is roughly 32,000 undergraduate and graduate students at USC and 8,000 at Pepperdine.
Another university, more on par with Pepperdine in size, is Gonzaga University. The most reported crime was theft at 62 counts plus 25 counts of bike theft, which gets its own category.
The Gonzaga crime statistics have a category that is uniquely theirs — more than 50 counts of vehicle prowl. According to the footnotes, prowling is the unauthorized entry of a vehicle for the purpose of committing a crime (theft, vandalism, burglary, etc).
Unauthorized vehicles coming to Pepperdine have to pass through one of the two gates watched over by DPS.
“Late at night, the booth officers are more discerning regarding non-registered vehicles entering the property,” said Public Safety Assistant Director Emrich, in an e-mail. “If a driver does not have a verifiable destination or business on campus he or she may not be allowed to access the campus, or a DPS supervisor may be asked to respond to the area and determine if the visitor may enter.”
Besides the officers and the gates protecting the students there are a variety of emergency phones located throughout campus.
The pay phones located in the residential areas all have a direct dial/free call option to reach the Public Safety dispatch. The polls with the blue lights on top of them, Blue Light phones, also serve the community by opening a direct line to the dispatch office. All the phones on campus are used regularly for service related needs, according to Emrich. This includes escorts, building access requests and medical concerns.
Despite if you like DPS or not, the campus crime rates show that Pepperdine is a safe place to go to school and to park your car.
01-19-2006