A new study shows Penn Sate has the highest on-campus violent crime rates in Pennsylvania.
Penn State students tell me they’re surprised to learn their campus has the highest crime rate in Pennsylvania, but they do say unfortunately when you have more than 40,000 students at one place, things will happen.
“It definitely doesn’t seem like an unsafe campus to me whenever I’m walking around at night, I don’t feel unsafe,” Lola Conti, Freshman at Penn State said.
Conti says despite that, she has gotten Penn State crime alerts.
“Most of the crime alerts I get are for sexual assaults, and I ‘ve also seen theft too,” Conti, said.
According to a new safehome.org study, penn state has the highest violent crime rate for universities in Pennsylvania at 1.23 on campus violent crimes per 1,000 students.
With nearly 47,000 enrolled at Penn State this year, that’s an average of about fifty eight violent crimes per forty seven thousand students.
This includes murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault.
Lisa Powers with the Office of Strategic Communications at Penn State gave WTAJ this statement:
“Safety is the number one priority at Penn State and as part of a robust police and public safety program, Penn State has resources and protocols in place to prepare for, investigate and repond in the the event of a variety of potential emergency situations on campus.”
She says Penn State also offers police escorts for students, an active-attacker training program and a behavioral threat management team.
Students say they appreciate how the blue lights that are spread throughout campus. When a student presses one, campus security come within minutes.