Rowan University has always had a problem with regard to campus safety, and it’s always been a controversial topic to talk about. Some people feel safe all the time throughout the day, but others are very scared and constantly worry about what is going to happen. You hear about crimes happening all the time at Rowan, but how often does it actually happen?

From a study in 2019, Rowan University reported 937 incidents related to crime that were either on campus, or places close to campus. Out of all 937 incidents filed, 157 were reported to be violence against women, 229 incidents were reported to be possession of some type of drugs, 502 disciplinary actions, and 49 were reported to be major crimes. 

Disciplinary actions take over 50 percent of all the crime that happens at Rowan University. Violence against women came up at a disturbing 17 percent of the crimes committed here. Rowan has been working on making the campus a safer place for everyone, but there is still a lot of work that needs to be done. Both of the Rowan semesters in total are around 240 days, not including breaks, and Rowan has averaged around 4 crimes a day. 

While the survey from 2019 looked at off-campus areas, on-campus crimes were still the majority of crimes, happening on campus 82 percent of the time. An accident is much more likely to happen if you are staying on campus rather than off. 

In my opinion, the thing that Rowan should do to improve its overall safety on campus would be to find more mental health professionals. Rowan already has professionals, but they do not know how to access them. There could be multiple different ways to promote awareness of this sensitive topic. They should have flyers all around campus to help promote mental health, and what you can do to reach out to them if you have any problems, or simply need someone to talk to. 

Another thing is increasing Rowan’s security. With the amount of crimes that Rowan has averaged per day, this choice should have been made a long time ago. The only time Rowan security is consistently on campus is during a weekend, multiplying on specific nights when parties are going on. 

The truth is, there should be multiple cops near every study hall, dorm, and apartment. 

If there are more cops around campus throughout the day, crime and arrests will go down drastically because college students will be more fearful of acting on them. If there are more police officers around campus, violence occurring on the streets will go down, major crimes will go down, and people will feel safe walking around at night. 

A lot of people are afraid to walk around at night by themselves, which is absolutely disgraceful. People should consider Rowan their home for 4 years, and not have to worry about the consequences of walking by themselves during specific times. 

Rowan has been working on their own app that provides help to students, faculty, and staff. RowanSafe provides emergency contacts, mobile blue light, the ability to be able to walk around campus while being monitored by the police at the same time, and the ability to send their location the second they request it. There have been multiple new ways to update your current safety on campus, but we should only keep on working on being safer. 

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