Is our Georgetown community safe? It depends who you ask. Washington, D.C., ranks as the sixth most dangerous city in the country. according to the City Crime Rankings annual survey, but many students remain blissfully unconcerned. Though DPS sends more than one menacing public safety alert email each week about crimes on campus and in the nearby area, it never seems real until it happens to you.
“The public safety emails seem scary, but since my neighbors are so nice, I don’t feel at risk,” LXR Resident Jill Perlow (CAS ‘08) said.
This type of attitude has encouraged DPS’s new resident anti-theft patrol, which aims to get students in LXR, Nevils, Village A and Alumni Square to start locking their doors. Residents in off-campus housing, however, do not have the luxury of a first warning when someone tries to break into their houses. But while many of these incidents have occurred in the Burleith neighborhood, not all residents of the area are shaken.
“I have never really felt unsafe or in danger,” R St. resident Ashley Minaei (CAS ‘07) said matter-of-factly.
Though both Perlow and Minaei reported that they lock their doors regularly, the feeling of safety they express can lead to carelessness in others.
Just last week, I left my ATM card at the ATM machine and someone stole it, directly withdrawing $660 from my logged-in account. It left me thinking-how could I be so careless as to leave the ATM without retrieving my card or even finishing the transaction?
It would have been unfortunate if I had lost the money, but my parents, after chastising me, found a way to make sure I had what I needed. I am extremely lucky for that, but it probably makes me a little less accountable for my actions.
Now that I know what it’s like to be robbed, those public safety emails seem a little more real.
The majority of students I interviewed did feel safe, with underclassmen and men more likely to feel safe than upperclassmen and women.
“I feel like I can leave my door open and leave the room and not worry about it,” said Greg Gartin (MSB ‘09), a first-year resident of Darnall Hall. “They’d really have to have some balls to break in here.”
Don’t be fooled by the preppy moms with strollers or stone lions guarding elegant townhouses, for as the library signs like to remind us, thieves are among us.
