Crime Reduction - Helping to Reduce Crime in Your Area

When developing messages to international students, careful consideration needs to be given to the cultural and behavioural characteristics of the differing nationalities within the student body. This is important for enabling crime prevention messages to be tailored to meet the needs of different groups as well as helping to educate police officers to improve their handling of victimised international students.

There is currently no legislation regarding the vetting of host families. As a result the Columbus project has come across incidents whereby students have been placed in unsuitable accommodation and / or the host's family are not adequately catered for during the students stay.

There appears to be a lack of enthusiasm to provide any sort of personal safety literature to potential foreign students in the belief that any mention of crime will discourage them from studying in the UK.  In fact, if universities marketed themselves with a clear message that the personal safety of their students matters, it would send a clear message that welfare of their students is a priority.

University procedure insists that incidents should be reported to the university's security department, as opposed to directly to the police. This is a particular problem in areas where security is unable to respond sufficiently quickly. Universities' failure to notify the police of these incidents results in low rates of reporting.

Many students are also reluctant to report crime for cultural reasons or else are ambivalent towards the issue. As part of the student registration process some police forces provide students with practice in filling out crime reports, with particular emphasis on the fact that there is no stigma in reporting things to the police. Additionally, some forces allow students to report crime anonymously. Whilst having details of the victim is always useful and of course important in a criminal investigation, what the police really need is accurate intelligence about what is happening in a particular area, so resources can be allocated accordingly. 

There are issues around how the police record offences against students and, in the case of some international students, differences around what the motivation for a crime might be. For example, in the case of an assault, the offence could be recorded as racially motivated, against a 'perceived' asylum seeker, a student etc. The fact that there is no consistent method of identifying university/student related crimes makes it even harder to gauge the true extent of the problem.

Literature must be printed in different languages, particularly those relevant to the area in which you are working.

Universities should provide a sort of 'left luggage' locker arrangement, particularly for foreign students who often carry large amounts of cash and personal documents around with them. However such a scheme would be useful for ALL students, as most will have at least some important documents, credit cards etc. that are vulnerable to theft , particularly in private rented accommodation where security is not always of a very high standard.

Provide students with an academic diary when they arrive at university. The diary would include lists of agencies that provide services such as the local police, support services and other local charities and organisations. Crime prevention advice would also be printed on each page of the diary.

Some universities, such as Birmingham, encourage a mentoring/ buddying scheme whereby freshers are linked to a second or third year student .The 'old hands' show the new ones where not to go, thereby reducing their likelihood of falling victim of crime during their first few months at university. 

Universities should contribute to their local Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership (CDRP). Universities need to become involved in a partnership approach as they are in an ideal situation to provide information on how crime affects young people. This would be of significant value when CDRP's are undertaking their Crime Audits.

Projects such as Columbus are important for promoting community cohesion through the use of training in schools around issues of diversity.