By Kyle Winslow

In an endeavor to promote crime awareness and prevention, the Student Government Association along with the Department of Public Safety, Prevention Education and Advocacy on Campus and in the Community, teamed up to host Campus Safety Week from Sept. 5 through Sept. 7, here at the University of Louisville.

The event was aimed at promoting awareness to many different crimes that can occur on college campuses. According the Justin Tooley, SGA Services Vice President, “I thought it would be a good idea if the campus community responded to some of the most prevalent crimes occurring on college campuses, mostly theft, crimes involving alcohol, and personal security.” Tooley added that the first month of school is known as “Red Zone” because most campus crimes occur during the first 28 days of the semester.

SGA offered Technology Engraving in most of the residence halls. The purpose was to give the resident’s belongings a trademark so that if something of theirs was stolen, they could retrieve it by this identification. Leah Riggs, a senior finance major and Senator for SGA did the engraving at Louisville Hall. “The Technology Engraving is an attempt to prevent theft, and make the residents feel more comfortable about their possessions,” said Riggs. She engraved everything from laptops to cell phones, and even tape dispensers.

Besides Technology Engraving, SGA made another improvement in theft protection by introducing an “If I Were a Thief” project. “[Resident Assistants] were asked to check residence halls for unlocked doors. If doors were unlocked, a flyer was designed to warn residents to lock their doors when out of their rooms. This is an indirect response to most campus crimes being theft.” said Tooley. Joe Dittman, the Community Oriented Policing Coordinator for DPS said that there were 230 individual thefts last year. “A lot of the thefts were reported by freshmen that were naive, and new to the university,” said Dittman. He also described the thefts as “opportunity thefts,” in which the perpetrators picked up purses or laptops that were sitting out in the open.

DPS sponsored a cookout Sept. 6, outside their headquarters at the Floyd Street Garage. According to Dittman, “It was a fine success, [DPS] offered door prizes, gave out free permits, and there was free food.” He estimated nearly 600 students attended and said that DPS wanted the students to know, “We are here, we are student advocates and we want to meet them.” Dittman believes crime on campus will continue to decrease, because “the university has made a tremendous investment in lighting, cameras, proximity locks, and security officers,” said Dittman. DPS will also be sponsoring an Alcohol Awareness event in October, where they will have DUI goggles for students to see first hand how alcohol can impair someone’s vision and actions. A lot of the alcohol-related crimes across campus are against women, and PEACC distributed “watch your drink” coasters to students who came to the DPS cookout.

Sharon Larue, the director of PEACC, said they distributed these coasters “to educate students about drugs used for sexual assault.” She also noted the most common drugs used for sexual assault are alcohol, ketamine, GHB and rohypnol. As far as crime statistics from the Department of Justice, U of L is within national averages. PEACC also sponsored their own self-defense courses here on Sept. 5 and Sept. 6. The courses were for both men and women. Larue noted that PEACC, “exists to provide advocacy and assistance to students, staff and faculty who are affected by sexual assault/rape, intimate partner violence and stalking. PEACC also facilitates educational programs and public awareness events about issues of violence against women.” Larue said that, “According to the Department of Justice, they estimate that one-fourth to one-fifth of college students will experience some degree of violence during their college career.” She also warned of circumstances where, “students have put too much personal information on their online directories, such as a class schedule and residence location, which a perpetrator has used to find them and harass them.”

SGA also kicked off a Campus Safety Walk to end the week on Thursday. Tooley said, “Senators will take a short tour around campus identifying potential safety hazards.” The SGA will develop an “action plan, and hopefully make progress on making our campus safer,” Tooley said.