A Boston Crime Scene

9/30/08

Of the three main Boston districts in which Emerson students are believed to reside, the most crime-prone is Boston's D-4 district, which includes the Back Bay, Fenway, and the South End, according to Boston Police Department statistics from Jan. 1 to July 20, 2008.

Emerson students primarily reside in three Boston districts that are made up of different areas and neighborhoods: D-4, D-14, which is made up of Allston and Brighton, and A-1, which covers Downtown, Beacon Hill, Charlestown, Chinatown, and the North End. Emerson College itself and its dorms are located in A-1.

"There are not a lot of violent or serious crimes in these areas," Scott Bornstein, Emerson's deputy director of public safety, said of the A-1 district. "Violent crimes against students are few and far between."

The Boston Police Department report showed that in terms of violent crime, there were two homicides in each of the three districts, while there were 15 instances of forced sexual assault in A-1 and D-14, and 16 in D-4.

But while violent crimes appear to be relatively rare with students, non-violent crimes like robbery, burglary and larceny appear to take place on a fairly regular basis, particularly in the D-4 district.

According to the report, D-4 has the highest numbers of every single non-violent crime.

D-4 in the first half of 2008 had 170 instances of robbery and attempted robbery, 268 instances of burglary and attempted burglary, and up to 1,751 instances of larceny and attempted larceny. It also had the highest number of vehicle theft and attempted vehicle theft of the three areas, with 166.

These numbers far outweigh the other two districts. The D-14 district of Allston and Brighton had only 44 robberies, 110 burglaries, 667 instances of larceny, and 86 vehicle thefts. A-1 had 114 robberies, 115 burglaries, 1,279 counts of larceny and attempted larceny, and 80 vehicle thefts or attempted thefts.

Sam Nowak, an Emerson sophomore in marketing, "My sister lives in Fenway; she has several friends in the area that have had their places broken into."

But despite the obvious crime levels in the D-4 district, it still does not deter Emerson Students from living there or wanting to.

"I'm looking for a place to live in Fenway and the South End," Nowak said. "It doesn't really bother me that crime is higher over there."

Officer Peter Shin, the crime analysis and statistics specialist at the Boston University Police Department, said he believes that in some cases area is not particularly important when dealing with crime in the student population.

"In many cases the criminals are opportunists looking for an easy victim," Shin said. "Victims allow the criminal into their personal space before they realize that they are in trouble."

The Boston Police Department's media relations refused to comment on the danger of certain neighborhoods on the grounds that they may appear biased towards a particular part of the city.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools