It is a sad fact that students, especially younger students living away from home for the first time, are vulnerable to crime. This can range from the irritating inconvenience of having a book or calculator stolen to burglary and personal assault.
In recent years, colleges have responded to the potential for crime against students by initiating programmes, such as campus watch, which has been operating successfully for a number of years in, among other colleges, University College Cork, and unicare, which operates in University College Dublin.
According to Denis McDonald, acting officer of residences and student activities in UCC, campus watch owes its success to the assistance of the college's campus watch committee and the local gardai involved, particularly Sergeant Charlie Barry, Garda Pat Enright and Garda Theresa McHugh. Since the start of the scheme in November 1992, reported crimes against students and their property have fallen from 143 in 1992 to 22 up to July of this year. Bicycle thefts fell from 51 in 1992 to six this year, and burglaries fell from 52 to six.
These programmes rely on increasing student awareness of the steps they can take to protect their property. At one point, UCC even resorted to "stealing" bikes, removing unlocked bikes and leaving a note for the owner to tell him where the bike could be collected in an effort to teach students the error of their ways.
"We try to raise their awareness about what the problems are rather than lecturing them about what to do when something goes wrong," says Barry Walsh, co-ordinator of UCD's unicare, which is a combination of patrols, advice and liaison with the gardai through Garda Niall Burke. "We try to take a more pro-active approach."
First year students arriving in a new college can be particularly vulnerable. Overwhelmed initially by the third-level experience, and sometimes prone to excessive socialising, they can quickly become victims of opportunistic theft, or even assault.
A college is not an oasis of safety in the heart of an uncaring world. As they grow in size and, as the cities and towns around them in turn grow, the problems of urban living increasingly creep in to the college environment. "When you are on campus, you shouldn't feel that you are 100 per cent safe," says Walsh. "Students shouldn't be too worried, but they shouldn't do things that they wouldn't do in the rest of the city. Our crime statistics are far lower than elsewhere in the city, but you still have crime everywhere."
There are steps that students can take to protect themselves and their property both inside and outside the campus. Consider a personal alarm (UCD is already selling such alarms to students at reduced prices). Walk in groups. Keep to well-lit areas where there are people; remember that, on a large campus, there is not as much reflected light from buildings as there is on a city street, so there may be some badly-lit areas. Keep a call-card with some spare units on your person in case you run into difficulties.
Report any suspicious activities, or incidents, to the college security or support services. Those services are always there to assist you and, as Barry Walsh points out, college security retains the telephone numbers of counsellors and gardai who can help you in an emergency. In UCD, for example, many of those who work with unicare are former students or postgraduates, so they are familiar with student life on the ground.
In your lodgings, always lock doors and windows. Turn off electrical appliances - televisions, cookers and the like - at night. Minimise the amount of valuables and keep as little cash as possible on the premises. Don't write down bank, or credit card numbers. You will be expected to retain a great deal of knowledge for examination purposes, so remembering four figure numbers shouldn't be too much of an additional burden.
Bikes are easy targets for thieves, mainly because so many people make them easy targets. "The bicycle is precious to the student," says Walsh. "It's the Rolls Royce of student life and they get upset when it goes missing. Our percentage of bike theft is quite low, but you can't tell that to the person whose £200 or £300 mountain bike has been stolen."
In conjunction with the UCD bike shop, unicare is preparing an identity code scheme for marking bicycles. For the present, and in other colleges without such schemes, be careful with your bike. Lock it in a designated parking area with a good lock and lock it to something. Locking the wheel and then leaving the bike lying against a wall will quickly leave you 100 per cent down in the bike department.
"We advise students to use bangers of bikes instead of expensive new models," says Denis McDonald. "And the best advice you can give anyone with an expensive CD collection is to leave it at home, or just bring a few at a time. They'll have plenty of other things to do for the eight or nine months they're in college."
Insurance for students remains a problem. Where it is possible, insuring property in shared, rented accommodation can be difficult and expensive. According to a spokeswoman for the Irish Insurance Federation, insurance companies are reluctant to insure property in apartments, or bedsits, although the spokeswoman says that they will consider individual cases on their own merits. Students sharing a house should ensure that the landlord has good locks on the doors and windows, and preferably an alarm as well, before approaching an insurance company.
Thankfully, most students will pass through college without encountering any serious difficulties. "It's going to be a brilliant time for them, the best three years of their lives," says Walsh. "It's just important that they enjoy themselves without fear for their safety. The more we can do to make that easier for them, the better."
