By Haley Egle
Murphy News Service
More crimes were reported on the Minneapolis campus than the St. Paul campus last year, according to the University of Minnesota Police Department’s annual Safety and Security Report.
In 2013 only 18 crimes were reported overall in St. Paul. Compare that to the 90 crimes reported in Minneapolis.
That’s not surprising, University of Minnesota Deputy Police Chief Chuck Miner said.
“St. Paul campus has always been a quieter area when it comes to crime,” Miner said. “It’s a less densely populated area and there are less students and less people living in the area around campus.”
Burglary numbers on the Minneapolis campus declined from 46 to 30, while robbery numbers more than doubled, going from 10 to 22.
“The iPhone theft ring that was at its height last year is probably to blame for more robberies,” Miner said.
Robbery numbers are up, Miner said, but there were actually more robberies in 2005 than there were last year. “There was a spike last year,” Miner said. “Knock-on-wood, things have been a lot quieter so far this year.”
The number of reported forcible sex offenses between 2012 and 2013 went down from 23 to 18 for the combined Twin Cities campus. Recently President Obama has called for institutions of higher learning to take further action to reduce sexual assault numbers on college campuses nationwide.
Using the Internet for Safety
The report says students have the option to file a complaint online. The catch here is that the incident has to occur on the Minneapolis campus and must be one of the following crimes; theft, theft from a vehicle, lost property, damage to property, or car damage.
Another online tool for those wondering about crime on campus is the UMPD’s Daily Crime Log, which shows each incident report filed by officers every day.
About the Report
The report is a comprehensive summary of the police department’s crime and safety activity level on the Minneapolis and St. Paul campuses.
It was published in compliance with the Clery Act which requires all institutions of higher education who receive federal funding to disclose crime statistics and safety initiatives.
The report includes information from several areas of campus safety and law enforcement including a review of the campus-wide safety initiatives and campaigns, contact information for specific safety agencies, and crime statistics from 2011 to 2013.
UMPD relies on more frequent crime trend numbers for their initiatives although this is a quite thorough report on crime trends. “We have a crime analyst who looks at the numbers for us,” Miner said. “We look at weekly and monthly crime stats so we can better monitor what’s going on.”
Reporter Haley Egle is studying journalism at the University of Minnesota.