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Safety is a major concern taken into account when choosing a school. We all want to be in an environment with a low level of crime on the campus. Bryn Mawr is a small, single-sex liberal arts school in a suburban setting. Although most reports on the Bi-Co Crime Blotter have to do with fairly benign car accidents and power failures, throughout the past (6/16/08- 2/05/09) some incidents have been reported on Bryn Mawr’s campus of suspicious phone calls and stalkers.

 

“1/28/09 3:25 PM
 A RESIDENT STUDENT REPORTS RECEIVING SEVERAL HANG-UP PHONE CALLS LATE AT NIGHT.  THE RESPONSIBLE PARTY IS UNKNOWN.  THIS INFORMATION WILL REMAIN ON FILE FOR FUTURE REFERENCE. “

or

“11/6/08 10:46 AM

OFFICERS RESPONDED TO THE REPORT THAT AN UNKNOWN ACTOR ATTEMPTED TO GAIN ENTRY INTO THE REAR DOOR OF THE BOOKSTORE. INCIDENT IS UNDER INVESTIGATION.”

 

These incidents are the more serious offenses I sifted through the Bi-Co Crime Blotter site. From this, I was interested if Smith College, a single-sex college in a suburban North Hampton, area would also have similar offenses, or if these reports were more prevalent in Bryn Mawr.

The answer was a predictable, of course not. Debatably. The crime statistics on Smith College’s website, report that in the January-December 2006 year (most recent disclosed crime statistics report), there were two forcible sexual offenses, one case of arson, and six theft incidents exceeding $250.  Like Bryn Mawr, Smith has cases of theft, but also has more serious occurrences of sexual assault and arson. According to another source, the US Department of Education, Bryn Mawr has two more cases of forcible sexual assault and seven more cases of burglary than Smith College. Although these numbers are similar, the differences may be due to Bryn Mawr's more accessible location to the outside world and a co-ed college.I find that the data differences may be negligible compared to Bryn Mawr verses larger colleges and universities. Being a single sex college, Bryn Mawr and Smith have low rates of sexual assault.

No school is completely without crime, but being a single sex college helps.