Campus Crime At Umpqua Community University

The social problem that I have chosen to discuss is campus crime. After the recent shootings at Umpqua community college in Oregon, I thought it would be interesting to take a deeper look into violence on college campuses. The umbrella term “campus crime” refers to a variety of things such as alcohol crimes, theft, assault & rape, drug crimes, harassment, and shootings. It’s important to distinguish the different types of campus crime, as well as understand why the crimes are committed and how they can be stopped. As a student, I was never aware of how much campus crime occurs in our country until mass school shootings became a phenomenon. The following four reviews are based on different articles that each speak about campus crime, both generally …show more content…
At UNC-Chapel Hill, students are informed about campus violence, the dangers that can be experienced, and ways in which they can prevent and resolve such issues. According to the author of the article, the school doesn’t dedicate much time aside from a few minutes during freshman orientation, to educate students on the dangers they can encounter during their time in college. He believes that because of this lack of information, students aren’t well informed about campus crime and, therefore, cannot “make wise decisions concerning their safety.” Considering the amount of violence that does occur on college campuses, it is necessary that universities and colleges spend the additional time and resources in order to “increase awareness” as the author states, and to make sure that both students and faculty are adequately …show more content…
The class textbook defines symbolic interactionism as a perspective that is “concerned with the meanings that people place on their own and one another’s behavior.” George Mead, the creator of this perspective, suggested that people rehearse most things they do, rather than do things spontaneously. As humans, we strive to impress others and think it’s not okay to stand out. Because of this, we act based on what we believe others will perceive. While most people believe that it is “uncool,” for example, to take a gun to school and shoot masses of people, there are others who attach the symbol that violence is “cool.” Because of this symbol that they have created and possibly adopted from glorified things such movies, music, and their peers, they believe that there is nothing wrong with hurting others. It could also be that people who commit these heinous crimes adopted their behavior from living in high-crime area or socializing with deviants. One of the articles above discussed the issue of how males in fraternities are more likely to sexually assault women. This may be due to the fact males in fraternities have learned deviant behavior from their fellow fraternity brothers. Due to this, they don’t attach any negativity to viewing women exclusively in a sexual