Safety and Crimes in VCU - Research Paper Example

Safety and Crimes in VCU Recent times have witnessed a consistent pattern of crime in and around Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). The patterns of crime show that robberies, attempted robberies, and cases of assault are the most common types of crime that occur in and around the University. The student community has raised concerns regarding the increasing levels of vulnerability despite the fact that the University has an elaborate and functional security infrastructure. The criminal elements appear to be determined to carry out their activities at any part of the university including some unlikely places such as the library and other parts of the university environment. The most vulnerable spots for these criminal attacks include corridors and streets that link up the various spots at the University (Forest 44). The criminal activities have been carried out either by mobs or by individual elements in and around the Universities. There seems to be certain factors that work together to increase the level of vulnerability of the university community to this spate of criminal activities. However, the VCU Police Department contends that the image of rising crime at the University is essentially a matter of perceptions. The VCU in fact argues that increased information sharing and alerts on security matters within and around the institution have reinforced the view that crime is on the surge, “Local media pick up the alerts. Hence the appearance, says the university's assistant police chief, Chris Preuss, that campus crime is exploding,” (Bass 1). Nevertheless, it remains important to seek to find answers to patterns, trends, statistics, and factors behind recent and past criminal activities in order to shield the university community from the criminal elements that obviously lurk within. I have always held the opinion that the university environment is one of the most complex and difficult places to police as compared to other places. The university environment fosters the idea of freedom and liberty, which allow the criminal elements to take advantage and carry out their criminal activities in ways that are difficult to detect. The assumption has always been that every person within the university shall conduct himself or herself with a higher level of civility as compared to other areas of the human society. In many cases, the persons targeted in the assault fail to suspect that they could be under threat because they also operate and carry themselves around with the assumption and the illusion that the university is naturally safer than the public places in the urban centers. However, I contend that the university is a community of different people and will always comprise of people with different shades of character just like any other community possesses such variations. In essence, it would be important to regard the university as place with its own special threats that arise out of its own uniqueness and nature. Theorists of security within institutions of higher learning argue that the criminal elements that operate within the university environment are likely to be more sophisticated than the average criminal in the backstreet of any urban establishment is. Such criminals operate from a point of informed knowledge with the awareness of the high stakes involved and the security infrastructure that is involved in the safeguarding the security of the university community (Forest 111). On the average, there is always the inside element involved in the criminal activities within the university. In my opinion, there ought to be a determined shift in the methods of combating crime at the university given the fact that the level of sophistication of the criminal elements appear to be on the rise. The traditional patterns of crime often involved the use of crude weapons or average assault. However, the two armed robberies that occurred at Monroe Park campus came after other four robberies reported elsewhere on the campus. One of the most unsettling aspects of this crime was that a firearm was brandished. The availability of firearms within and around the university is a signal to the fact that the sophistication of crime at the institution are on a consistent pattern of growth, and that the methods and ways of combating the criminal activities require a determined revamping and reordering to suit the new challenges. According to theorists and experts on criminology, the growing prevalence of crime in American institutions of learning is a reflection of the near-collapse of social order within the wider American society and a loosening of social control (Forest 133). The emerging reality also hints a disconnection between the methods and means of the law enforcers and the kind of systems and skill that inform the operations of the criminal elements. Although the American criminal world has shown marked changes in complexity across the times, the structures of the law enforcers remain largely the same. In my view, there is a significant mismatch between the current approaches and the corresponding challenges. In the twentieth century and before, crime in American Universities was largely manifested in terms of simple acts of burglary, minor assault, petty crime, bicycle theft and other small acts that did not dent the images of the institutions or attract the attention of the federal government (Forest 42). However, the twenty first century has witnessed a surge of more violent crimes including rape, killings, and mass murder. The implication of this acts hint at a rapidly collapsing security structure in the wake of growing radicalism and the liberal culture within which the expression of freedom has thrived. Experts view the current situation as a case of misappropriation of the essence of freedom into lawlessness. Psychologists, on the other hand, contend that the growing incidents of crime are related to the disconnection between the administration and the student community (Bartol and Curt 56). The disconnection yields some kind of tension in the minds of some students, which eventually vents out in terms of deliberate disorder. Engaging in crime, according to some psychoanalysts, is the students’ defiance and disapproval to the kind of order at the institutions of higher learning (Bartol and Curt 56). My opinion remains that VCU should seek ways of identifying the driving motives of the criminals and the motivating factors in order to tackle the challenge at its root. Equally, there is the need to adopt a multi-sectored approach that should bring on board groups and stakeholders previously left out in the security structure and system in order to enhance cooperation across the board. Such cooperation would increase avenues of the free flow of information in an integrated system, which would help in narrowing down on the causes, vulnerable points, suspects, and all other factors that would reign in the seemingly runaway crime rates at the university (Forest 88). I hold the view that such a comprehensive and all-inclusive approach to fighting crime would check against the rising crime prevalence at VCU. Works Cited Bartol, Anne, M and Curt R, Bartol. Current Perspectives in Forensic Psychology and Criminal Behavior. London: SAGE, 2011. Bass, Scott. The VCU Crime Spree That Isn’t. Style Weekly. 9 Oct. 2012. Web. 14 Nov. 2012. Forest, James, J. Homeland Security: Protecting America's Targets. New York: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006. Read More