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Keeping up with yearly fluctuations in numbers, the number of motor vehicle thefts and burglaries reported in 2012 has changed yet again.
According to the UNM Annual Security and Fire Safety Report released by UNM’s Police Department last week, there were 38 reported cases of motor vehicle theft in calendar year 2012. This number dropped from the 57 reported cases in 2011, but is higher than the reported 35 cases in 2010.
The number of reported burglary cases, on the other hand, increased to 35 in 2012 from 19 in 2011. But last year’s number is lower than in 2010, when there were 50 reporter cases.
UNMPD public information officer Lt. Tim Stump said the burglary statistics included those involving vehicle and building break-ins.
But Stump said these numbers have increased and decreased in past years. He said the current report shows no specific trend regarding these incidents.
“Over the years, the numbers have fluctuated up and down,” he said. “We don’t see a significant change. It’s just that it might be just an anomaly that things went the way they did. Somehow, it just went down … If we do see a trend, we’ll put together a directed activity toward it.”
According to the report, the number of reported forcible sex offenses increased from two in 2011 to four last year. The number of reported drug arrests dropped from 20 in 2011 to 12 in 2012, and the number of reported illegal weapons possession dropped from 1 in 2011 to none last year.
Stump said there has been no particular trend regarding sexual assaults in the report despite highly publicized incidents this spring.
Two sexual assaults occurred on campus during the spring semester.
The first was Jan. 27, when two men allegedly sexually battered a female student at Johnson Field under her clothes. The second assault happened Feb. 4, when a man allegedly sexually battered a female student over her clothes near Castetter Hall.
Still, Stump said UNMPD has helped to implement the campus’ Sexual Assault Response Team, which launched this semester, to “give victims an opportunity to come forward.” He said the department also added four new officers to improve the overall security of the University.
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This year’s report mirrors crime statistics of the city, too, Stump said.
“Wherever we live, we affect the housing that’s around us,” he said. “I don’t think it’s just UNM. I think whatever’s going on is going on in Albuquerque also.”
UNM student Kate Williams said the decrease in motor vehicle theft on campus is a wonderful thing.
“It really shows that they are trying,” she said. “Students should feel that this is a safe place where they can park their motor vehicles without having to worry.”
Williams said student safety at UNM ultimately depends on students themselves.
“I personally have a problem with anything creepy or unsafe,” she said. “It just depends if you’re being smart or not of where you’re going and the time of day.”
UNM transfer student Ori Melnik said that although he thinks UNM is safe, police could still implement more improvements.
“I came from the University of Texas, and there were police everywhere you looked,” he said. “Here, I see like one police car not so often. The only place I’ve actually seen a police car is between the SUB and the biology building in a little section. If police can increase their presence, especially at night, that can definitely help the problem.”
Stump said that although he is not optimistic that crime will stay down at the University, the department will do its best to maintain its safety.
“Every one of these numbers represents a victim,” he said. “So we do our best to alleviate that.”
