NCJ Number
141288
Journal
Journal of Security Administration Volume: 15 Issue: 2 Dated: (1992) Pages: 49-64
Date Published
1992
Length
16 pages
Annotation
Using data from Uniform Crime Reports, this study examines the crime rates of Florida's public State universities and their respective adjacent cities and surrounding counties.
Abstract
The main campuses of the nine universities in the State University System of Florida were selected for study. Included for comparison purposes were the nine cities adjacent to the universities and the nine counties surrounding the campuses. Crime statistics were obtained from 1989 and 1990 Uniform Crime Reports. In comparing crime for campuses and adjacent cities and surrounding counties, a z-test for the difference between proportions was used. The most salient finding of this study is that the crime rate at each State university main campus was lower than the corresponding crime rate for the city or county in which it is located. This was found for all campuses when crime rates were compared to the crime rates of adjacent cities and surrounding counties and has implications for university and municipal police decisionmakers. These findings should not be used to diminish the significance of on-campus criminal incidents, but rather may suggest that university campuses have distinctive characteristics that make them less susceptible to crime than the cities and counties in which they are set. University campuses, for example, may be more similar to small towns than to large municipalities in their crime rates. 6 tables, 3 notes, and 11 references