In light of the recent incident in Pierpont Hall, we must address the university’s current policies involving residential hall security. In February, a student was assaulted and a gun was shown in Pierpont Hall after two men entered the freshman residential hall. Although security threats are rare at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the incident raises questions about the university’s current security policies. To monitor guests, other universities have added policies such as 24-hour residential security, keeping a record of everyone who has entered the building and preventing unwelcomed guests. UMass must improve its current security policy to keep up with other universities. As students of the university, we believe to ensure our …show more content…
Residential hall security, a division of the UMass Police Department, is responsible for employing students as security monitors and police cadets while also providing the walking escort service. Police cadets are students trained in police and de-escalation techniques who serve as foot patrol on campus (“Residential Hall Security”). These cadets are well trained and work closely with residential security. Security monitors are the last line of security for students living in residential halls and deal directly with those entering the building. Security monitors check residents’ identification, register guests, and screen visitors during the evening hours in residential halls (“Residential Hall Security”). Both cadets and security monitors are vital to keeping the campus safe. Problems arise when security is off duty. Although halls are locked 24 hours a day, when security is off duty, entrances to residential halls are only monitored by security cameras via UMPD (“Residential Hall Security”). Access to residential buildings is limited to the students living in the building because doors are only unlockable with correct ID. But, there is a loop hole the university has failed to address. Intruders can follow a resident into his/her building and access dorm rooms. If security cameras fail to identify a problem, an intruder enters the building and no immediate action …show more content…
At Northeastern University, security monitors are present at all times. Northeastern employs proctors in each residential hall to monitor access to residential halls 24 hours a day. There, guests and visitors must present a photo ID to the proctor and be signed in by their host (“Annual Information Report 2014-2015” 8). Perhaps one reason Northeastern has addressed the issue while UMass has not is Northeastern’s location in urban Boston provokes a more real possibility for security threat. Located in rural Massachusetts, UMass doesn’t face the major threats urban universities face. However, this doesn’t mean UMass should shy away from the possibility of a threat. According to data from 1997-2010, the rate of violent crimes on college campuses compared to the general population has risen from 2009 to 2010 nearly 1% (Birnbaum 11). This has occurred on both urban and rural college campuses. UMass trials behind other universities in residential security and should introduce further policies to keep its students
What many need to be vigilant of is that not just campus students are in jeopardy when it comes to ravish and sexual assault, but additionally people with disabilities , children and elders, the homeless, prison inmates and immigrants that do not have licit documentation and that many times are put in positions of sexual coercion.
Supporting Point Why should college campuses be any different? They contain the country’s future presidents, senators and judges. They are also one of the most vulnerable places because most colleges don’t allow firearms on campus. The most important factor is that many students don’t pay attention to their surroundings so they are put in dangerous situations and they should be able to defend themselves to a certain extent.
The faces flash by on the computer screen. The women on the screen are differents shapes, sizes, ages, and colors. However, there is one thing that all the women have in common: they have all been sexually assaulted on a college campus. More than one in five women were sexually assaulted on college campuses (Mott, Par. 1). It has been proven that programs in schools can help prevent these statistics from growing. However, more needs to be done to prevent sexual assault on educational facilities because the current programs are not fulfilling their purpose.
The most infamous and deadly act of violence to occur in a U.S. school were the events of April 20, 1999. In Littleton Colorado two teens went on a shooting and bombing spree that left 15 dead and 24 wounded before they shot and killed themselves. During the rampage, the two fired about 900 rounds of ammunition from two sawed off shotguns, a 9-mm semiautomatic carbine, and a semiautomatic handgun. Police also later found more than 30 bombs placed throughout the school (Brock, 2001).
"Statistics about Sexual Assault and College Campuses." Statistics about Sexual Assault. Sarah Lawrence College, n.d. Web. 28 Nov. 2013. .
When it comes to sexual assault on college campuses there is also the question of what can colleges do to decrease the amount of sexual assaults. Bradford Richardson and Jon A Shields wondered the same thing, so they conducted an ...
A. Background Information: The next four years of the students’ lives after high school mark the moment they become independent. Because of the freedom, college students are more susceptible to careless actions like drinking, doing drugs, and even committing sexualt assualt. Sexual assault has been around for years and the actions to prevent this heinous crime has been minimal, especially in colleges and universities. In 2015, Brock Turner, a student from Stanford, sexually assaulted a young woman on campus. Turner claimed that because he was drinking, was with friends, and saw a “promiscuous” female student, that pressured him into committing such a heinous crime. This was because Stanford University didn’t teach its students sexual assault prevention which caused the victim to be harm and violated. By teaching college students about sexual assault prevention, it decreases the number of sexual assault cases on campus, prevents psychological damage to the victim’s mental state, and educates other students to know the signs
Rape is the most common violent crime on American college campuses. A numerous amount of issues dealing with sexual assaults has been caused by unsafe environments on college campuses. Over the past years there has been a
College campuses have been known to be popular breeding grounds for rumors. Ask any college student walking around a typical campus for the latest gossip, and they may flood you with more stories, quips, and anecdotes than you may have ever asked for. Some of these stories lead to codes and rules for living safely on campus, as urban legends about campus-related murders and crimes begin to circulate more frequently. In addition, these stories may deal with some supernatural elements. With the increased security alerts nationwide, caution is exercised in all circumstances and a bit of the anxiety and security alerts have spread to American colleges as well.
About one in four women are victims of sexual assault in college, but there are ways to prevent this problem. The consequences of sexual assault are harmful and long-lasting and affect not only the victims but also their families and communities. Solutions to this problem _______. But, as Richard Edwards, chancellor of Rutgers-New Brunswick college said, “Regardless of the number, it’s a major problem, affecting our students and people all across the country and it has to be taken seriously” (5). If people work together, the steps can be taken to stop sexual assault in colleges.
She stayed hushed, dumbfounded, and overall hurt; she let him walk out on her without a word.
According to the Uniform Crime Report, a violent crime occurs on an average of every twenty-six seconds in the United States (UCR, National Data). Young people, primarily between the ages of 17 and 19 and in their early twenties, commit the vast majority of crime (Barkan and Bryjak, 33). It is also common for individuals at this age to attend college. Based on the Uniform Crime Report (Table 9), twenty-four colleges and universities have increased enrollment rates from 2005 until 2012 in New York State alone. Despite the consistent increase in the number of individuals continuing their education, it appears that the amount of violent crime has decreased among college campuses. This contradicts the common crime myth that crime is increasing throughout the United States when in fact it is actually slightly decreasing or remaining constant. It is possible for the relationship between increasing enrollment rates and decreasing rates of violent crime to be explained by the common misconception that crime is actually decreasing. However, there is evidence that supports this inverse relationship is due to the underreporting of crime among college campuses, which often happens because the college doesn’t want to damage its reputation. As a result, they choose to deal with the crime themselves rather than getting the authorities involved.
The human factor of physical security consists of the people who own the property being protected, the people who work at the property or those that visit the property/protected area, and the security personnel guarding the property.
There have been reports of increased violence on U.S. college campuses since the early 1980s. Alcohol-related problems have included vandalism, fighting, injuries, and rape. However, as in the past, crime on campuses frequently was not reported to authorities or not divulged by institutions. Therefore, it is difficult to know if there has been an increase in incidences or just increased reporting. Roark (1987: 367) has suggested that "although comparative data from previous years are difficult to obtain, it seems to many student affairs professionals that there is an increase in violence on campuses." One study reported that residence hall advisors mediated more physical confrontations between students in the mid-1980s compared to previous years. College campuses are communities populated with individuals at high risk for unintentional and violent injury, the vast majority of whom are single and experiencing freedom from home and parental supervision for the first time. Despite broad-based concern about violence on campus, accurate information about the scope and nature of this problem is hard to come by. Nevertheless, there is general agreement that since the 1960s crime and vio...
In order to have an effective physical security program you need to know what you are protecting and why you are protecting it. Physical Security encompasses the protection of people, places, things, and data. Protecting each of these elements requires different pieces of equipment or different avenues but the philosophy of the protection is the same. In this I mean that you are protecting from unauthorized access to the places, people, things, and data.