Crime Rates Skyrocket at UCSB

The 2004 Clery report was not good news for  UCSB.   The university's administration was recently embarrassed by negative press coverage for receiving the dubious award of the "number four party school in the nation" according to the prestigious Princeton Review.  Yet another embarrassment, the looming spectacle of a Playboy pictorial featuring "Girls of the Top Ten Party Schools" is on the horizon.   Some of the nudes may well be from UCSB.  Neither of these events adds to the prestige of UCSB.  Insiders within the administration have said that some university officials are livid about the current string of embarrassments.  Some people in the administration have privately stated that they are concerned that the university's academic rankings could sink as a result of the latest string of embarrassing disclosures.  

While national, state and local crime statistics  have fallen over the past few years, UCSB's on-campus crime rates have skyrocketed.

In what thedarksideofucsb.com considers the most important category – crimes against persons – UCSB's crime rates have skyrocket.  Forcible sexual assaults increase from 9 in 2003 to 13 in 2004, an increase of 44%.  Moreover, both 2003 and 2004 were dramatically higher than 2001.  A clear three-year trend line is self-evident. 

Aggravated assaults increased from one in 2003 to four in 2004 an increase of 300% .  

The other area that is of notable concern is that of alcohol abuse.  2004 saw a total of 1,102 alcohol referrals made by UCSB.  That is up from a total of 616 made in 2003, an increase of 79%.  It is well known that most of the violent incidents occurring within the UCSB/IV community are occasioned by substance abuse – most notably alcohol.  Off-campus crime in the IV area is a problem as well.   In the calendar year 2004, the IVFP arrested 2,768 people for alcohol related offenses.  Over 700 of the arrested parties were UCSB students.  Another disturbing statistic is that out of the 98 persons arrested by the IVFP in 2004 for furnishing liquor to a minor, 61 (62%) were UCSB students.  

While UCSB doesn't seem to comment much about the crime rate, apologists for UCSB have attempted to conceal the horrific crime rate by comparing the UCSB crime rate to other UC campuses.  They completely ignored the national and state trends of lower rates over the past decade and chose to compare the UCSB crime rate against that of the UC system as a whole.  Since the elevated UCSB stats are part of the UC wide report, the UCSB numbers increase the statewide numbers.  However, comparing UCSB to other UC schools shows that UCSB to be in dire straits.  Compared to the University of California at San Diego (UCSD), which is a much larger school (also on the coast of California), the crime rate at UCSB is shockingly high.  One UCSB employee told the thedarksideofucsb.com, "If the administration and the student leadership are willing to live with the high crime rate and the continual public embarrassments, the university's image will suffer.  You cannot expect the university's ratings to improve while the public's perception is that we are a party school with a high crime."  

What is even more alarming is that the reported crime rates reveal only the tip of the iceberg.  Reports such as http://www.dailynexus.com/news/2005/10207.html  in the Nexus clearly show that in the area of sexual assaults, as many as 95% of the assaults go unreported.  If these statistics are to be believed, it is possible that somewhere between 350 and 500 young woman were raped or sexually assaulted last year in the UCSB/IV community last year.    

Many incidents go unreported because of intimidation such as described in the recent Nexus article,  Greek Groper.

There was some good news in the Clery Report:  Some property crimes were lower than the previous year.   

For the complete campus-by-campus crime reports, visit:   UC Crime Reports.