SU President lays blame on local area and security staff as City named 4th WORST for crime in UK
City’s alarming crime rate may be due to the past attitudes of security guards, according to Students’ Union president Issy Cooke.
The Complete University Guide’s 2015 rankings placed City as the equal fourth-worst university area for crime in the country. The ranking took crimes most likely to affect students into account: burglary, robbery and violence/sexual offences. Embarrassingly, City’s score was worse than the London average in all three individual categories, and was third-worst for violent and sexual offences.
“A lot of security weren’t keen to get off campus” Issy said. “If there were people hanging around that might have been harassing students, they weren’t willing to go up to them”.
She went on to add that the previous guards’ ethos was “it’s off campus, it’s not our job”. However Issy believes the problem will diminish in the next year as “security has come in-house”– the university can now train security personally, and pay them more, in return for their “higher quality” protection.
However, Issy did acknowledge that the problem could be more complex. Disparity in Islington is notable, with “one of the highest rates of high-quality housing and poverty in the country”. Islington has the second-highest crime rate of all London boroughs, and while this may be pushing up City’s ranking it also increases the importance of high-quality security around the university.
Issy also highlighted the need for police efforts in crimes that affect students off campus: “Phone thefts are a huge problem here” she said.
One student told The Square they feel “conscious” of not needing ID cards to enter the university building. Another said: “I don’t feel they [the university] do a lot” when it comes to keeping students safe.
“A lot of security weren’t keen to get off campus” Issy said. “If there were people hanging around that might have been harassing students, they weren’t willing to go up to them”.
Maybe that because it isn’t there within their job remit nor are they insured to be patrolling the streets or other public areas. That would be a job for the Police. Do your research before filing this childish, factless reports. And as for ID cards, if you were required to show them in more locations on campus you would only moan (as you have done in the past) about City operating under a police state conditions.
Both the SU President & The Square need to stop playing at being adults and either do your research or leave these matters to the adults. You are a laughing stock and clearly no nothing about security or the law. Pathetic!