Westwood News
UCLA Disputes "Dangerous College" Claims
By Katherine Noland
Nov 26, 2012 - 11:32:25 AM

WESTWOOD—UCLA is disputing a recent study that has labeled it the “most dangerous college in America.” The study was conducted by Businessinsider.com, a New York based news website, that looked at FBI crime statistics from 2008 to 2011 for US public universities with 10,000 students or more.

While looking at both violent and property crimes, violent crimes were weighted four times higher than property crimes. According to the survey, UCLA has an average of 49 violent crimes and 929 property crimes per year, marking it the most dangerous out of all surveyed schools.

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UCLA officials argue that this finding is painting a false portrait of UCLA as a school and community. The grounds for their dispute are that police reports taken by UCLA police do not simply reflect incidents at the school itself. The school’s police department is also responsible for residential and business areas neighboring the campus, and UCLA hospitals and clinics that are all over the LA County. According to several other findings, Westwood has been named one of the safest LA counties.

UCLA was not the only California school to make the list. Other schools included UC Berkley at #3, San Diego State University at #7, California State Fresno at #19, and UC Riverside at #24.

“The 25 Most Dangerous Colleges in America”, published on November 20 by Abby Rogers and Gus Lubin on the Business Insider website, prefaces the findings by noting crime rates in schools as a whole. The article cited an FBI Unified Crime report showing that there were roughly 2,696 violent crimes and 87,160 property crimes on and around college campuses in 2011.

UCLA director of media relations, Phil Hampton issued a statement that “to conclude that UCLA somehow is dangerous is a reckless mischaracterization of data." Business Insider states that, despite the “controversial list," “we think it offers a useful perspective on crime on and around campuses.”