Northeast State Community College ranked one of nation's safest colleges

Even with the three computers, two wallets, one iPod and 18 reams of copier paper reported stolen last year, Northeast State Community College is one of the country’s safest colleges and universities, according to a report released Tuesday.

The Blountville, Tenn., community college was ranked as the country’s third-safest school on the Web site www.StateUniversity.com, which based its scores on statistics that 450 public schools and universities submitted to federal law enforcement authorities in 2008.

“There’s a tremendous amount of teamwork on this campus,” John Edens, Northeast State’s director of police and safety, said in response to the ranking. “It’s a great place to work.”

Only Arkansas State University’s campus at Beebe, Ark., and Virginia Western Community College in Roanoke, Va., scored higher than Northeast State, respectively taking the first- and second-highest spots.

At Northeast State, Edens’ officers investigated seven thefts last year. A computer was stolen in January, while a laptop was stolen in February.

About $25 in cash was stolen in June, a wallet was swiped in September, and a laptop and purse went missing in October. In two separate cases, the copier paper and the iPod Touch were stolen in November.

“The biggest problem we have is people leaving their property unsecured,” Edens said, stressing the importance of locking car doors and not leaving belongings unattended.

Those seven theft cases give Northeast State an overall crime rate of 1.34 property crimes per 1,000 students.

For the same year, Sullivan County had an overall crime rate of 32 crimes per 1,000 residents.

The crime rates at the two highest schools on the Web ranking were 0.23 property crimes per 1,000 students at ASU-Beebe and 1.04 property crimes per 1,000 at Virginia Western Community College. None of the three schools reported any other crime in 2008 besides larceny, which was the most common crime at schools featured in the StateUniversity.com report, said Bill Richards, spokesman for the Web site’s publishing company, Net Industries LLC.

“The biggest factor [with campus crime rates] seems to be the surrounding town,” Richards said, adding that colleges in more urban areas have more crime than schools in rural areas.

That pattern appears at two other Tri-Cities colleges featured in the report: Emory & Henry College in rural Emory, Va., took the listing’s 25th spot, while East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, Tenn., came in 223rd.

“I’m not at all surprised by that,” E&H spokesman Dirk Moore said.

The college reported one burglary and two larcenies last year, giving it an overall crime rate of 2.92 property crimes per 1,000 students.
“This is a very close-knit community where everybody knows everybody,” Moore said.

ETSU reported one aggravated assault, one forcible rape, two robberies, 19 burglaries, 121 larcenies and six vehicle thefts last year, giving it a rate of 0.15 violent crimes and 11.13 property crimes per 1,000 students. The report ranked the Johnson City university as Tennessee’s eighth-safest school while E&H was ranked as Virginia’s third safest.

Richards said this is the first year Net Industries has compiled a report on campus crime. The rankings were based on the Uniform Crime Reporting data submitted to the FBI by each school’s campus safety department and by the severity of each type of crime reported.

Net Industries staff could not find that information, or could find only incomplete data, for many colleges and universities, including the University of Virginia’s College at Wise, and with King College and Virginia Intermont College in Bristol – so they were left out of the report.

However, Richards said, the fact that these schools are not featured on the report should not give people an overall impression about safety on those campuses.

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