By Karuga Koinange
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
DJ Burke was walking to his dorm just after 11 p.m. one night after hanging out at the Towson Town Center for most of the evening. Burke, then a freshman residing in Tower D at the Glen Complex, had barely exited the mall before disaster struck.
He was hit from both sides and knocked to the ground by two assailants. Burke immediately rushed to his dorm and reported what had happened to his dorm resident assistant, who then reported the incident to the Towson University Police Department.
Assaults like this one are senseless and unpredictable — and they are not rare on Towson University’s campus. According to an analysis of nearly 600 TUPD crime reports from 2016 and 2017, there have been 50 assaults reported in the past two years, including first degree, second degree and domestic — though as with many crimes reported, some were eventually deemed by police as unfounded.
Shannon Jacobsen, a sociology lecturer at the College of William & Mary and a campus crime expert, said that a high volume of crime happens in or near student residences given the density of people.
“The vast majority of crimes tend to happen within residence halls or dorms, since students are living in very close proximity with one another,” Jacobsen said. “Dorms are probably the most common location [for crime] since it’s literally people living on top of each other.”
Burke said he would rather be in a heavily populated area than alone. He said that isolation can be dangerous, as demonstrated in the assault.
“Anywhere where it’s intended to have high populations of people I believe is safer because you’re alleviating the isolation risk,” Burke said.
Tower A in the Glen Complex, where Burke now serves as an RA, is the most crime-ridden residence hall on campus, according to TUPD reports.
In just the last two years, 36 crimes have been reported in Tower A and, as displayed in the graphic below, there are many types of crimes that take place in that building such as controlled dangerous substances (CDS) violations, theft and destruction of property.
[infogram id=”4bea6821-25ba-4462-b21a-e5c2f7e68e51″ prefix=”lb0″ format=”interactive” title=”"A" Tower Crimes”]
Many buildings on campus have been the sites of crime. As shown in the maps below, this is especially prevalent in the Towers and West Village residences. Crime in these buildings over the last two years has largely been alcohol and CDS violations, with more than 50 reports of such violations combined.
Jacobsen said that supervision of students in dorms is often an issue. She said that the relationship between RAs and residents is often strained, and she suggested that hiring external staffers to work as RAs could help reduce crime.
“Universities could try and make RAs more active within dorms, but the problem I’ve seen is that RAs are more likely to be senior students who don’t necessarily want to rat out their peers or the ones they are living amongst,” Jacobsen said.
Burke said that whenever a crime is committed in the Glen Complex, TUPD holds a briefing with the RA staff to discuss strategies that they can use to prevent future crime. He emphasized that with hundreds of students in each residence tower, RAs are usually limited to defaulting to TUPD rather than handling crimes themselves.
“We always try to be proactive in setting boundaries to making things better,” Burke said. “It’s that [police] presence that’s there that often helps in these high traffic times.”
Crime in the residential areas on campus can also fluctuate by semesters. The 2016 and 2017 crime reports show that crime in West Village housing rises in the fall while crime in the Towers goes up during the spring.
[infogram id=”bd45c67e-18e2-491c-88dc-a1086f764612″ prefix=”tOs” format=”interactive” title=”Fall/Spring in Student Residences”]
Jacobsen said that this could be due to new students moving in, thus increasing the number of potential criminals and victims in those areas.
The center of campus stands out as one of the most crime-filled areas. Over the last two years, the most commonly committed crime on campus (126 instances) has been theft.
As shown in the graphic below, the Liberal Arts Building, University Union and Cook Library have been the primary locations for theft.
Jacobsen said that students can take preventative measures to avoid being robbed such as not leaving their items alone.
“Students see what other students have, and will want to take those items,” Jacobsen said. “I think another problem is that students will often trust that other students won’t take their stuff, so they leave their belongings out and then they get stolen.”
There are some situations that are simply out of people’s control, though, such as destruction of property. Burke said that this crime, similar to the assault that he experienced, is usually random.
The following image shows the objects that have been damaged or broken due to destruction of property according to the TUPD crime reports from 2016 and 2017.
[infogram id=”f938698a-0ab8-4d5e-9901-80c16332fdfa” prefix=”PQa” format=”interactive” title=”Destruction of Property”]
Burke said he would like to see students coordinating more with TUPD to discuss safeguards and new protocol that can be established in order to make criminals reluctant.
“TUPD is always willing to come over,” Burke said. “That’s why I think crime can be alleviated because with Towson police being so close they just hop right over and we can knock it right out.”