According to recent FBI crime statistics pulled from more than 600 U.S schools there were tens of thousands of campus crime across the nation in the calendar year of 2013.
The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth led all schools in violent crimes, with 27 instances among 9,210 on-campus students.
Property crime reports (a large issue in Eugene) were led nationally by Arizona State, where 1,131 cases were reported for the year.
Where does University of Oregon stand in terms of total crimes?
UOPD Communications Director and Public Information Officer Kelly McIver said it’s not that simple to determine.
“Campuses are not easily, or logically, comparable. Schools differ dramatically in size of enrollment, size of campus footprint, number of buildings, sprawl into their communities and the size and nature of the communities, they occupy,” McIver said.
By comparing the size of the student body to the average number of crimes reported, one can get a good grasp on crime in the area.
According to the report, UO is slightly worse than average when it comes to campus crime. When looking at the violent/property crime breakdown for the campus area, 51.5 percent of the crimes are theft/burglary related. Bike theft accounts for some of this percentage.
“I don’t feel comfortable leaving my bike anywhere on campus really,” UO junior Derek Bishop said. “After it was stolen the first time, and all the stories I’ve heard, it’s always a scary thing.”
In 2013 the year the data was pulled, bike theft in Eugene had increased 64 percent from the previous year, which had an average of 2.3 bikes stolen a day. In 2013, an average of 3.74 bikes were stolen a day.
To combat the rise in bike theft, the city of Eugene recommends all UO students register their bikes with the UOPD.
When it comes to other crimes, UO is roughly on par with numbers seen at other similar campuses, including the number of possession charges.
73.6 percent of possession charges come from alcohol possession and 25.9 percent come from drug possession.
When comparing crimes across various campuses, there are problems with reporting.
“The only reliable data that exists is for the crimes that have been reported to law enforcement. We don’t know with certainty about things people don’t report,” McIver said.
Some of the universities that complained of this issue were Emerson College, UMass Dartmouth and fellow Pac-12 schools, Arizona State and UCLA.