Violent crime is not the norm

While incidents like Friday’s stabbing outside Kerckhoff
Hall draw much attention, university officials said in reality
violent crime on campus is fairly rare.

Since 2003, university police have not recorded any homicides,
and Nancy Greenstein, director of police community services at
UCPD, said assault is the most common type of crime police respond
to.

In 2005, two assaults involving knives or other cutting objects
were reported, while reports of fistfights and similar incidents
totaled 63.

Aggravated assault, which covers Friday’s stabbing, is
defined as “an unlawful attack by one person upon another for
the purpose of inflicting severe or aggravated bodily
injury,” according to UCPD’s Web site.

Greenstein said many incidents of assault on and around campus
occur between people who know each other.

“It’s typically a fight,” she said, adding
that UCPD responds to altercations at parties, restaurants and
workplaces. “When you have an average daytime community of
70,000, people are going to be in conflict.”

Over the past three years, the total number of assaults reported
to UCPD has held fairly steady at about 80 per year.

But some students said they do not think the campus community is
adequately informed of crimes occurring in the area.

Janelle Reonal, a third-year Asian American studies and
sociology student, said she had not even heard about Friday’s
stabbing, and suggested that crime alerts be e-mailed out to
students.

“I feel relatively safe, but then I’m probably not
that well informed,” she said.

Greenstein said many of the violent crimes are reported mostly
so victims have a record of the incident, and do not necessarily
affect the larger community.

“Most (crimes) are fairly minor,” Greenstein said.
“Often people just want to document that something
happened.”

Statistically, crime at UCLA is fairly similar to crime at other
urban schools.

Between 2003 and 2005, UC Berkeley police handled between 80 and
100 assaults per year, according to the UC Berkeley police
department’s Web site.

Still, Greenstein cautioned against comparing campuses on the
basis of crime statistics alone, noting that statistics may be
recorded differently or may ignore other environmental factors.

She added that UCPD is primarily concerned about crime on
UCLA’s campus, rather than how that compares to other
schools.

“It’s always apples and oranges when you look at
numbers from other schools,” she said. “This is about
what goes on on our campus. This becomes our norm.”

Olivia Cuarteron, a fourth-year psychology student, said she
believes students might change their behavior as a result of
hearing about what crimes have occurred recently on campus.

“You don’t hear about the little crimes, but you do
hear about the big ones,” she said. “I think students
won’t feel less safe (as a result), but they might be a
little more cautious.”

Greenstein also said it is important for students to exercise
caution.

To safeguard against attacks by perpetrators unknown to the
victim, Greenstein said students should abide by “the usual
personal safety tips,” including being aware of their
surroundings and using an escort service to get home late at
night.

But she said it may be more difficult to avoid conflicts with
someone the victim knows.

“It’s about avoiding certain situations; it’s
about knowing when to walk away. It may be about having some basic
skills in conflict resolution,” Greenstein said.

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