IAPSC Members Randall Atlas, James Clark, Fred Miehl, Chad Parris, and Frank Pisciotta contributed to this Building Design + Construction article discussing how campus crime – whether real or perceived – presents Building Teams with more opportunities for early-stage consultation with university clients.
These days, news about colleges and universities is as likely to be about the latest shooting incident on campus as it might be about academic matters. The active shooter incident at Florida State University last November was the 12th such event on a college campus in 2014.
Shootings get the headlines, but there’s a steady flow of crime on campus. In 2013, the most recent year for data collected by the U.S. Department of Education, there were 23,913 burglaries, 4,468 robberies, 4,568 aggravated assaults, 3,613 forcible sex offenses, and 6,121 motor vehicle thefts reported on college campuses, to say nothing of the 1,926 arrests for illegal weapons possessions, As of mid-December, the Justice Department was investigating sexual assault cases on 90 campuses nationwide.
Given that there are roughly 41 million students are enrolled in more than 4,000 colleges and universities in the U.S., these crime statistics pale beside the mayhem in most cities. Comparisons of crime data clearly show colleges and universities to be significantly safer than the cities and towns that surround them. - Read more at: http://www.bdcnetwork.com/bdc-exclusive-how-security-influencing-campus-design-and-construction#sthash.URLUZYs0.dpuf