Austin Cook
Equinox Staff
Keene State is the safest college campus in New Hampshire according to the American District Telegraph (ADT) and its close affiliate Your Local Security Company.
Keene State College’s Director of Campus Safety, Jeff Maher, responded to ADT’s findings with the following written statement, “Keene State College is pleased that we have been recognized as the safest college in New Hampshire by ADT. This recognition is a culmination of efforts and partnerships between our students, the KSC community and the City of Keene”.
Maher also stated “While the campus remains a safe environment, as noted by this survey, there are steps that the College can take to increase the perception of safety and reduce a fear of crime. One such measure is ensuring well-lit pathways and walkways and ensuring access to emergency ‘blue light’ phones. We also encourage our students who ‘see something to say something.’ Anonymous reports can be submitted by typing ‘reporting’ in the search box on keene.edu.”
Students did not seem surprised by these findings as Brandon Patten, a senior English/Education major, said “I think campus is pretty safe overall”. Patton did comment though “I don’t know how many people are on campus safety but maybe there should be more patrols.”
In a post on one of their webpages (yourlocalsecurity.com), ADT explained they categorized the schools by campus size, type of campus, location, types of crimes, and data availability. ADT also used information published within the Campus Safety and Security Survey Report as well as the FBI Uniform Crime Report.
These reports collect statistics around criminal offense both on campus, and in campus housing. The Campus Safety and Security Survey Report published the number of reported murders, manslaughter, rape, fondling, incest, robbery, assault, motor vehicle theft, and arson while the FBI Uniform Crime Report captured up to 57 data elements via six types of data segments: administrative, offense, victim, property, offender, and arrested.
ADT reported in the post that only the main campus of each school is evaluated, and in order be included in the report, the college must have 1000 or more enrolled students. The college can offer either a two or four-year degree and can be a public, private, non-profit or a for-profit campus. The final report not only identifies the schools that are safest in the state but also those safest in the nation.
The college’s statistics have remained fairly consistent over the past 3 years as documented by the Campus Safety and Security Survey Report.
Austin Cook can be contacted at acook@kscequinox.com
