WE'VE ALL read the e-mails. "Student robbed on 14th Street...Be alert, trust your instincts, walk in groups and keep to lighted pathways." "Student assaulted on Wertland...Be alert, trust your instincts, walk in groups and keep to lighted pathways." The reports in this newspaper aren't much different. "Student fends off attacker on Jefferson Park Avenue...Police advise students to be alert, trust their instincts, walk in groups and keep to lighted pathways."
The University is required by law to provide alerts about threats to student safety, but just once, I'd like to read about the police making an arrest in one of these cases, or increasing the number of officers in dangerous areas or developing new strategies to protect students from the violent crime that is all too common in Charlottesville despite its appearance of safety and serenity. Instead, it's all vague warnings and tired admonitions to be alert, trust our instincts, walk in groups and keep to lighted pathways. In short, "Protect yourself."
Don't get me wrong. That's good advice. But sometimes the exigencies of University life demand that one walk alone, or in the dark or in places that our instincts tell us to avoid. Students are often out late, whether for academic or social reasons, and they often live beyond the University's network of lighted pathways and emergency telephones. This means that students often find themselves in risky situations, and the police should work to reduce those risks instead of counseling students to avoid them through lifestyle changes that may be difficult or impossible to make.
Both the University and Charlottesville police departments say they have stepped up patrols in response to the recent robberies and both claim to conduct thorough investigations of crimes against students occurring in their jurisdictions. But Sgt. C.R. Smith of the Charlottesville Police Department, which has primary responsibility for the off-Grounds areas where the recent robberies have occurred, told me that her department has made no arrests in these cases. University Police Chief Michael Gibson, meanwhile, said that the only arrest his department has made was that of the student who allegedly filed a false report of a robbery at Brown College last month.
In fairness, it's probably difficult to track down the anonymous robber who brandishes a weapon, demands money and disappears without leaving any evidence but the memories of the victim, but the failure of either police department to make arrests in these cases leads one to wonder if their investigations consist of anything more than taking a statement from the victim and sending out the "be alert..." e-mail.
It's also worth asking whether the University Police, whose primary task is ensuring the safety of the University community, should pay more attention to the off-Grounds areas where students are often robbed. The University police conduct joint patrols with the Charlottesville police in the Corner area, but Gibson said that jurisdictional issues and limited resources prevent his department from assuming greater responsibility for off-Grounds areas.
"If I have an area with a high concentration of students, I am concerned about that area," Gibson said, "but I don't have the resources to patrol a huge part of the City of Charlottesville and the County of Albemarle."
Perhaps he should get those resources, along with a mandate to protect students in the off-Grounds places where they live, as well as the on-Grounds places where they work. Several Charlottesville neighborhoods might as well be part of the University, given their high concentration of student residents, and the University should take a greater interest in the security of these areas. Nor is it a huge part of the City of Charlottesville that requires attention. The bulk of student robberies occur in the relatively small areas on the periphery of Grounds that many, if not most, students call home.
In a place where wealthy, out of town students live side by side with the poor local youths who seem to have committed most of the recent robberies, a certain amount of violent crime is inevitable. But I want to hear more from the police than constant admonitions to be alert, walk in groups, trust our instincts and keep to lighted pathways. To repeat these warnings ad nauseum without making a major effort to address the cause of the danger consigns students to the role of perpetual prey in some great Charlottesville jungle. I won't say that these alerts smack of victim blaming, for potential victims need to protect themselves in a potentially dangerous world, but it shouldn't fall to students to prepare for battle every time they step outside at night.
"What can we do to protect ourselves" is an important question for students to ask. But when the crimes continue despite constant warnings to be alert, trust our instincts, walk in groups and keep to lighted pathways, the bigger question is "what's being done to protect us?"
Alec Solotorovsky's column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at asolotorovsky@cavalierdaily.com.
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