Crime, especially on college campuses, is something that people should always be informed of. NIU safety notifications should be sent out regardless of crime severity to ensure campus community safety.
When NIU provides safety notifications, regardless of crime severity, students feel more protected.
The safety notifications can make students feel safer, Zoey Proper, a first-year health science major, said.
“Currently, they are not sent very often which may lead people to worry and feel unsafe. I think more safety notifications will increase the students and staff’s sense of safety,” Proper said.
With more comprehensive safety notifications, NIU students can know more about crimes on and around campus. NIU’s safety notifications are sent out, or at least supposed to be, whenever crimes happen, including sexual assaults, shootings or robberies.
However, as of Feb. 11, 2024, only five safety notifications were sent out during the 2023-2024 academic year. Given the amount of crimes in DeKalb, the lack of awareness for students is alarming.
A plethora of crimes have been committed at NIU already this year, according to the Northern Star’s February and January crime logs. The NIU community deserves to know about crimes that occur.
Safety notifications are sent on a case-by-case basis, Darren Mitchell, NIU’s chief of police, told the Northern Star.
“A lot of times, there’ll be no evidence other than somebody saying that there was shots fired, they heard the sounds of gunfire, but there was no evidence,” Mitchell said. “No shell casings, no people in the area, no information that would lead us to absolutely say that this occurred.”
If the NIU Police Department wants to show their commitment to campus safety, they must alert the community in a timely manner about all crimes that occur, even if they’re only suspected.
Suspected crimes should also have notifications. Even though suspected crimes may not be confirmed, it’s better that individuals are aware, so they could take safety precautions if they feel unsafe. Suspected crimes could be just as important as confirmed crimes and should have consistent notifications so people are aware.
Not alerting the community about crimes that occur could have devastating consequences for the university. For example, Liberty University was fined $14 million for failing to disclose information about crimes on campus and discouraging sexual assault victims from reporting, according to the Associated Press.
When people receive crime notifications, they can take measures to protect themselves.
NIU’s campus is not overly safe, so notifications come in handy, Matt Agnew, a sophomore sport management major, said.
“I think the number of notifications I received last year was a lot, and I thought that the campus was not that safe,” Agnew said. “When students get a notification, they will most likely not want to go out.”
Although safety notifications may be overwhelming at times, they have the crucial purpose to keep the NIU and DeKalb communities safe, which is imperative.
Proper said crimes that aren’t dangerous may still make people feel unsafe.
“It is extremely important to ensure everybody on campus feels safe and knows what is going on in their surroundings, but constant notifications for less serious crimes that are not considered a danger may leave students feeling unsafe if there is an abundance of them,” Proper said.
Anxiety or not, it’s better to err on the side of caution and be safe rather than sorry.
If NIU truly cares about students’ safety and peace of mind, they should bring back safety notifications entirely, no matter the severity of the crime.
