Put crime in perspective

For all of the well intentioned and intelligent people who make their homes near Penn's campus, a surprising number of outlandish cries are spreading throughout the neighborhood.

"The sky is falling!" these supposedly well-educated people shout in a tone suggesting that "someone" should have already identified the problem and fashioned a solution.

In reality, there is no such celestial debris to threaten the average Joe Blow on Locust Walk. Rather, the cries from the frightened masses concern their safety in light of what seems to be a recent crime wave.

Two shootings in a month, coming on the heels of a spike in robberies this past fall, is enough to spook thousands of students -- who are still figuring out the real world on their own -- not to mention the scores of anxious parents back in Connecticut who now spend their afternoons writing strongly worded letters to University President Amy Gutmann.

"Why is nothing being done to stop this crime!"

"When is it going to end?"

"You have to do something!"

What would Chicken Little say?

The better question is: What would a reasonable person say?

Anyone halfway familiar with living near other people -- in, say, a city or a town as opposed to a farm or a compound -- understands that crime does happen from time to time.

Last year, for example, nearly 90,000 incidents occurred in Philadelphia. That equates to one for every 20 residents of the city proper.

But what about in the alleged "danger zone" that is West Philadelphia? One incident for every 15 residents. In Center City, by contrast, that figure is one in eight. And the statistics are virtually the same in most of the largest cities in America.

Yet when a few students on the street become victims, an uproar ensues.

I don't mean to minimize how really awful some of these incidents are -- it is admittedly cold to reduce violent crimes to statistics. -- but the current level of campus unrest is unwarranted.

If you think for a minute that the University is not deeply concerned about what is going on, think again. When it comes to whether the administration does, in fact, care about students' safety in equal parts as they care about the expediency in which their tuition checks arrive, it deserves the benefit of the doubt .

This is the same university that spends $23 million a year on one of the largest school-run police forces in the country. And the same school that earmarked another $5 million this week, likely in response to some of those letters from Connecticut.

It seems as though they are trying. They are doing something. But it all has to start with a frank and honest conversation that recognizes what the problems are.

Penn, more than most schools, has a strong record of being up front about crime in its neighborhood after it was caught sweeping it under the rug a few years ago. Today, the University sets a good example of reporting campus crime that others -- including Drexel, which was recently caught fudging crime data -- should follow.

The side effect of this good behavior is unnecessary concern from the masses. If the public did not know about the 624 robberies and aggravated assaults that occurred in University City a year ago, the consensus would probably be that the area was perfectly safe. Safe as it may be, knowing about incidents gives people cause to take precautions -- exactly what public safety officials urge ad nauseum.

Precautions alone, however, are not the answer. Saying that the solution to campus crime is for students to utilize walking escorts and shuttle vans is tantamount to saying the United States will deal with the exorbitant price of oil by driving electric cars.

Any measures geared toward curbing crime should be visible -- to the public and the criminals. This was the strategy Rudolph Giuliani pursued as mayor of New York in the late 1990s -- the "Broken Windows" policy.

The New York Police Department did not start by saying it would eradicate the hundreds of homicides each year, but rather focused on smaller and more manageable goals: such as fixing broken windows in Brooklyn and cutting prostitution in Times Square. It was not long before some of those hundreds of homicides disappeared as the image of lawlessness faded away.

The same transformation happened on this campus a decade ago, and now is not the time to ignore the lessons of tangible results.

Adding lights to streets and putting more cops on the beat create an image of safety -- exactly why such a strategy should have been pursued months ago. At least now it is underway.

If it takes putting a uniformed officer on every street corner, do it, whatever the cost. Reinforcing the image that Penn is a safe place will allay fears that were unfounded in the first place.

If nothing else, it might make the Greenwich Post Office a little less busy.

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