Crime decreasing, University Police says

November 2, 2009 —

As the student population continues to grow, on-campus crimes aren’t keeping pace. The University’s annual crime report shows a decrease of criminal offenses\ in 2008 compared to 2007.

Burglaries, the most common campus offense, dropped to 25 instances from the 42 reported in the previous year. SVSU had 9,837 students last year.

By comparison, Grand Valley State University, with 23,892 students, reported 10 burglaries last year in its annual crime report.

Most of the reported burglaries are preventable, says Chief Ron Trepkowski of University Police.

The most common lead-ins to these offenses include people leaving their dorms or offices unlocked or leaving valuables unattended in public areas.

“We seldom have a burglary where a door or window is broken,” said Trepkowski.

While criminal offenses on campus have dwindled, arrests and judicial referrals have not.

Campus security made 134 liquor law related arrests and issued 130 judicial referrals in 2008. This represents a small boost from the 108 arrests and 112 judicial referrals made a year prior.

At a glance, one might correlate the increases with the growing resident student population.

But a look at the 2006 arrests and judicial violations made for liquor law violations suggests the lower numbers for 2007 were anomalies.

That year, campus security made 112 liquor-related arrests and issued 176 judicial referrals for alcohol violations.

The figures pale in comparison to Ferris State, where alcohol-related judicial referrals alone nearly hit 400 in 2008. Ferris had 13,532 students.

Trepkowski says he has noticed more cases involving marijuana in recent years, which is reflected in the steady increase of drug law violations during the last three years. Even with the increase, such reported infractions remain low in comparison to Ferris State, which had more than double SVSU’s total in 2008.

Despite the number of drug and alcohol violations, Trepkowski said students are generally cooperative when campus security does break up a party. He attributes that to an instilled idea of personal responsibility.

“I think Residential Life does a nice job of setting expectations and making our residents accountable,” he said.

More serious offenses, such as robbery or arson, seem nonexistent . Trends for these offenses are common among SVSU’s sister universities, including Ferris State, Northern Michigan and Grand Valley State universities.

Trepkowski sees the maintenance of safety as a shared responsibility.

“The more we can build partnerships with others on and off campus, I feel the better we’ll be,” he said. “But we’ll never say, ‘Our campus is safe. We don’t have to do anything more.’”

Campus security releases its annual report not just to share its record of the previous year, but also to create awareness of crime prevention programs.