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| SCOTT GULLEDGE / Scroll |
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The BYU-Idaho campus is a safe place compared to Rexburg. Rexburg is a safe place compared to Idaho, and Idaho is a safe place compared to the rest of the nation.
According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, Idaho ranked 45th for the amount of crime in 2003. Rexburg had a crime rate almost one third that of the state average, according to the State’s National Incident-Based Reporting System report. Captain Garth Gunderson of the BYU-Idaho Division of the Rexburg Police Department said crimes on campus are only about one fourth of Rexburg’s crime.
The numbers prove what the students already know. In a university-conducted poll, 93 percent of students said they feel safe in Rexburg, while 6 percent said they didn’t know. Some students feel very safe in Rexburg compared to their hometown.
“I always feel very safe … in my house. I don’t really lock it, because I don’t think anybody is going to go and steal anything … In Mexico we have walls around the house and glass on top of the walls. It’s not like here. Here, I feel really safe I can walk at night,” said Cesar Salas, a sophomore from Durango, Mexico.
Though it is safe, BYU-I has crime. In 2004, there were 10 instances of assault, nine instances of burglary — which is entering with the intent to commit a felony, sex crime or petty theft; — 42 instances of larceny, which is theft; two instances of auto theft; one weapons offense; two liquor law violations; one drug offense and 13 instances of vandalism.
The number of crimes committed on campus has stayed relatively stable over the last 10 years, but the number of students has dramatically increased according to campus police, which means that the number of crimes committed per person has decreased.
Campus numbers are only for crimes committed on campus, not anywhere else, even off-campus housing, and most of the offenders are not students.
Gunderson said campus police tend to arrest more non-students than students. Gunderson said there are hundreds of people who make their living solely through crime within a 30-minute drive who could prey on the students.
Gunderson said the biggest danger on campus is people forget to be careful. Even though crime is low, there were 216 crimes on campus last year and 216 are too many, because there were 216 victims.
Some of the students understand the power of being careful. Gunderson said the mission of campus police is to protect students and the assets of this university from those who come to make victims of the students and the university.
The biggest crime on campus is theft, Gunderson said. Students need to take better care of their personal property, by locking it up or keeping it close to them. This includes locking their doors. Also students need to be careful at night because being a victim of a sex crime is catastrophic compared to the nuisance of theft, Gunderson said.
Captain Randy Lewis of the Rexburg Police Department agrees. He told students to lock their cars and apartments, to walk in well-lit areas and not accept rides from people they don’t know.
