Burglaries, vehicle thefts rise at UNLV

Monday, Oct. 11, 2004 | 11:11 a.m.

UNLV police saw a sharp increase in the number of reported burglaries and motor vehicle thefts from 2002 to 2003, according to a campus crime report released last week.

The number of burglary reports jumped to 132 in 2003 from 85 in 2002. Car thefts rose from 61 to 73 in the same time frame.

The annual totals for liquor and drug violations, however, went down slightly in 2003 compared with 2002, according to the report.

UNLV police arrested 70 people for violating liquor laws on UNLV property in 2003, which includes everything from underage drinking to driving under the influence. In 2002 police issued 82 arrests for liquor violations.

Arrests for drug violations totaled 59 in 2002 and 51 in 2003, according to the UNLV police department report.

It says there were three sexual assaults reported during 2002 and four in 2003, according to the report. There was only one aggravated assault in 2003 and no other violent crimes reported on campus.

An increase in incidents may simply mean more people are reporting the crimes, Terry Miethe, a UNLV criminal justice professor, said, or in the case of burglaries, incidents like homeless people going into UNLV buildings on Shadow Lane can drive the numbers up.

"You can't conclude because there are more offenses that the campus is more dangerous," Miethe said. The perception of safety on campus is relative to the person, he said, noting that he feels unsafe on campus at night, but that may be because he studies crime for a living.

The weakness in the report is the broadness of the categories. The way they are defined and reported each year could skew the numbers up or down, he said.

Jose Elique, director of public safety and chief of police at UNLV, was not available for comment on the report Friday. Also, no one from the department was able to provide more detailed breakdowns on the data, such as which crimes were included among burglaries.

UNLV's statistics for 2003 pale in comparison to the recent crime numbers of the surrounding area, according to Metro records. In the past 60 days there have been 118 stolen vehicles, 117 assaults or batteries, 106 burglaries, 42 narcotic-related incidents and 27 robberies reported to Metro Police within a one-mile radius of UNLV.

UNLV's Department of Public Safety regularly issues crime prevention tips and puts out alerts whenever there is a major incident on campus, officials said. There are free security shuttles available from dusk to midnight, campus security escorts on request, 64 blue emergency phones for students and staff to be able to contact security in an emergency, and 50 cameras in the main parking garage near Artemus Ham Hall to prevent crime, according to the report.

Nevada's institutions have until Friday to release the mandatory federal reports on campus crime. The reports have to outline the crime reporting and prevention procedures in place at the campuses as well as the numbers of various types of crime for the previous three years, 2001 through 2003.

The public may access the daily police logs for the university at unlv.edu/studentlife/dps/police/media.htm.

Sandy Boyle, vice president for finance and administration at Nevada State College, said her institution had no incidents in all categories during the 2003 school year, but that the report was not yet finished. Officials at the Community College of Southern Nevada also said they were still working on the report.