College is a time for students to discover their dreams, learn how to be an adult and gain independence. Most college campuses in Louisiana are not safe environments for students to thrive. After the death of Madison Brooks at LSU, Louisiana students, especially young women, have become more aware of the dangers on a college campus. Even students at ULM must be aware of the dangers surrounding college campuses. According to a study by SafeWise, Monroe is the fourth most dangerous location to attend college in America, making the threat of crime even more prevalent at ULM. Andrew Hull, an outreach specialist at SafeWise, states how prevalent crime is in our area.“Monroe had the fourth highest violent crime rate out of all of them with 17.7 violent crime incidents per 1,000 residents,” Hull said. The latest campus report provided
by ULM showed that 56 incidents related to crime and safety have occurred since 2021. These student involved incidents took place on campus. Based on the student body population, that’s about six incidents per 1,000 students. Instead of being something to lookforward to, college has become scary and dangerous. Louisiana is not the only state to have issues with violence on college campuses. This is happening nationwide, and steps should be taken to limit these crimes. While ULM offers self-defense classes and sponsors the ULM Safe app, there is much more to
be done. In a perfect world, there would be a solution to resolving all crime across college campuses, but that is not feasible. The best way to handle the crime issues would be to prevent the crime most common on college campuses, which is sexual assault according to Women’s Health. According to RAIN, 13% of college students have been sexually assaulted, with most victims being women. Young women enter
college with a sense of fear about violence and assault. Women learn how to be safe from predators from a very young age. They carry this
knowledge into college, where it is used almost daily. Although women are often the target of these attacks, every student is threatened by sexual violence. Sexual violence will not decrease because students are taught how to stay alive and avoid dangerous situations. The best solution for the increasing crime on college campuses is to start with the issue of sexual assault. Teach students through sexual violence forums and help them understand that people are not objects. There is no way to end all crime, but focusing on why these things occur is a great start.