Staying Safe and Secure

It is better to be safe than sorry and a few basic precautions go a long way to securing your wellbeing.

• Students are seen as rich pickings by some petty criminals who safely assume that they have a mobile or smart phone, television, CD or DVD player, a laptop, digital camera and mp3 player, and maybe even a bike, a car or some designer gear.
• All are relatively easy to dispose of in the world they frequent.
• It is estimated that a third of students become victims of crime, mainly theft and burglary, but many incidents could have been prevented.
• Most students are blissfully unaware of crime in our towns and cities until they fall prey to it. This is particularly true of freshers partying in their first few weeks at university who are not 'street-wise' about the local area.
• Often student victims may be the worse for wear, perhaps having taken advantage of drinks promotions in a club or pub.
• The figures speak for themselves – about 20 per cent of student robberies occur in the first six weeks of the academic year.

Student-related crime tables comprises crime figures for all universities in England and Wales.

• The ranking is based in the relative levels of crimes of relevance to students (burglary, robbery and violent crime) within three miles of the university campus. It does not record crimes in which students themselves are involved.
• Rankings for London universities appear in a separate table.
• Comparable data for Scotland and Northern Ireland are not available. Therefore, for these areas we rank cities with two or more universities (Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Belfast).

We publish these figures together with the tips which follow on the basis that 'forearmed is forewarned'.

• The rankings are compiled from official police data and, whilst not perfect, give a much more realistic picture than might emerge from scare stories in the press or questionable claims about safety in the odd prospectus. If safety and security are significant factors in choosing where to study then here are some hard facts to consider.
• These figures may over-represent crime levels. This is because they are based on resident populations and take no account of short-stay visitors and commuters. The likelihood of becoming a victim is therefore less in real terms than these figures might suggest.

Next page: Top Tips to Stay Safe