Last Tuesday, the University Police Department reported two robberies at North Oak Park, occurring on Monday, Jan. 21. A victim told campus police her cell phone had been taken from her hands, while a male victim reported a pair of headphones stolen from him while bicycling.
Although no weapons were found to be evident during the robberies, the two victims reported to police similar descriptions of the suspects. According to the report, campus police have arrested one particular suspect while working to find the second.
While reports of robbery have remained stable, the crime analysis generated by the U.S. Department of Education indicates that drug related offenses reported on campus have dropped.
As reported in the data, Southeastern saw a total of 22 drug-related arrests on campus and on-campus student housing facilities in 2011, a drop from the year before which claimed 38 drug law violations.
However, from 2009 to 2011, the University saw more drug related arrests than any other law violation.
“Our statistics [for drug law violations] have remained relatively stable,” said Lieutenant Patrick Gipson.
A study conducted by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration concluded that college-aged students using drugs had increased from 19.6 percent in 2008 to 21.5 percent in 2010.
In addition, Tulane University and Centenary College of Louisiana were both named as some of the “druggiest” schools in the nation by The Daily Beast in 2010 and 2011.
When asked about the notion in which universities are becoming more of a haven for drugs, Lieutenant Gipson said, “My opinion is no. I don’t think it’s any more now than it ever has been.”
The on-campus and residential life arrests did not differ from other areas, with only one more arrest being made on public property, totaling to 23 drug arrests.
“A university isn’t going to allow illegal behavior to go on, but it is a college,” said Gipson. “Students sometimes like to experiment with things. Sometimes they get in trouble for that if they do something that’s illegal. I don’t think it happens more now than it ever happened before, but typically universities are places where students might do something they might not otherwise do.”
Gipson explained that many of the drug law violations are fairly minor, saying, “If you also look into a little more detail, beyond the numbers and statistics, you’ll find that the actual drug violations are usually minor possession accounts and not manufacturing nor dealing and that kind of thing.”
When compared to other universities, with similar institutional enrollment totals, Southeastern fairs well.
According to the U.S. Department of Education, drug-related arrests made on campus and on-campus housing facilities totaled to 33 at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 2011, 10 more arrests than Southeastern filed that year.
“We are a very safe school,” said Gipson.
Gipson referred to both the University of New Orleans and University of Louisiana at Lafayette when comparing Southeastern to other campus crime statistics.  
“We usually perform very well against other schools our size as far as statistics go. Our crime statistics are roughly a little bit better than theirs.”
Lieutenant Gipson factored in the city of Hammond’s low crime rate as a measure that keeps Southeastern’s campus crime low.
“The way crime statistics are determined for a university sometimes includes areas near the university, so the area that a university is located can have an impact on their crime statistic,” said Gipson. “Hammond is a relatively safe town. The areas immediately adjacent to our university are not usually high profile. Right now, there are no real high crime areas adjacent to the university, so the chances of local crime statistics spilling over onto university are slim.”