Study ranks Penn as least safe Ivy school

The Penn campus and its surrounding neighborhoods are more at risk for violent crime than any other Ivy League school, and rank 41st overall among colleges and universities across the nation, according to a controversial study released yesterday. University officials have down-played the significance of the report, which is only a prediction based on a wide variety of socioeconomic factors, crime statistics and a census sample. Using a mathematical formula, researchers from the New York-based APBnews.com and the Exton, Pa.-based CAP Index Inc. concluded that Penn has the most at-risk campus neighborhoods in the Ivy League, followed by Columbia, Yale, Brown, Harvard, Cornell, Dartmouth and Princeton. On a national level, Penn found itself ranked 41st out of the country's 1,497 four-year colleges and universities, all of which were tested. Homicides, rapes and robberies were the only crimes taken into account. Fels Center of Government Director Lawrence Sherman, who specializes in criminology, was highly critical of the methodology behind the findings. "This is really a very misleading type of exercise," Sherman said, pointing out that the study is not a compilation of crime statistics but instead a prediction of potential crime trends. One of the major problems, Sherman said, was that the APBnews.com/CAP Index report examined a geographical area much larger than Penn's campus. The study looked at neighborhoods within a three-mile radius of College Hall -- stretching into North and South Philadelphia and as far east as the Delaware River. In contrast, the main portion of the University Police patrol area spans west to 43rd Street, south to Woodland Avenue, east to 30th Street and north to Market Street. Sherman, who lives several blocks north of campus, said that if the neighborhoods surrounding Penn were as dangerous as the study says they are, he would have serious concerns about his own safety. "I ought to be lying awake in my bed waiting to be murdered," Sherman joked. But APBnews.com's Robert Port, who wrote several of the reports, defended his company's findings. "It's just like a polling firm trying to predict an election," he said. He explained that the first-ever rankings account for statistics like the number of single family heads of household, household income, average level of education, real estate value and population density of the particular neighborhoods in question. Vice President for Public Safety Thomas Seamon deferred questions about the report to University spokesperson Ken Wildes. Wildes said that although the report was made public yesterday, University President Judith Rodin was first notified of the results in late August. Wildes acknowledged that Penn officials were not happy with the news but emphasized the need to take the incredibly broad findings "with a grain of salt." "I think most of our students come here understanding that an urban environment presents challenges and opportunities," Wildes said. "I think the opportunities outweigh the challenges." Standing by his report, Port offered a reason as to why Penn and other institutions around the country have expressed discontent with the list. APBnews.com's World Wide Web site, where the report is posted, also published complaints from officials at Harvard, Columbia, Georgia Tech and several other schools in a special response section. "It's bad news and people don't like to hear bad news," Port said. "What I would say is that they should look at the news and not attack the messenger.? Nobody should use this information alone, but they should check it out." CAP Index Inc. -- the company responsible for much of the statistical analysis in yesterday's report -- is headed by Robert Figlio, a former professor of criminology at Penn. Sherman warned that if people do not fully understand the report's somewhat convoluted results, the University's image could be unnecessarily tarnished. "The danger is simply that you give people bad information," Sherman said.

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