By Jae Myung Ahn, Carlos Romero and Allen Liu
“icons” by reallyboring is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
UIC student Ruth George was strangled to death in a campus parking garage on Nov. 25.
Afterwards, it sent shockwaves throughout the campus as there was a significant outcry from UIC students, her family, and friends to enforce UIC’s security measures.
On Feb. 5, the Halsted Blue Line station was temporarily shut down because a man was shot in broad daylight during a time that UIC students would normally take the train.
Both of those stories shed light on multiple criminal activities that affect the area surrounding UIC.
“I do feel safe sometimes,” said UIC student, Alex Munoz. “I live in one of the apartments near UIC and when I’m walking from school I do try to be aware of my surroundings as much as I can but I am human and I tend to get distracted by my phone while texting, going through social media, or changing a song,”.
According to Chicago Police Department data, there have been 65 cases of crimes around UIC Student Center East within a 1/2-mile radius between Jan. 13 and Feb. 29. Among all crimes, larceny was exceptionally higher than any other type with 49 cases, followed by robberies with seven.
The most common type of crime that occurs around the university has to do with theft, which takes over 75% of total crime count, excluding grand thefts such as automobile thefts.
Only 8 percent of larceny violators were arrested, however, it is expected as petty larcenies are harder to track compared to other grand crimes like homicides.
It is comparable with other universities, such as the University of Chicago, where there were 37 cases of crimes. Larcenies were also the most frequently occurred crime, numbering 28 cases total.
The total crime count within a year goes up to 13,836 cases in the 28th ward, placing it second to 42nd ward among all wards. The crime count has been the lowest in the last 90 days with 2,921 cases, possibly due to the recent pandemic regarding COVID-19 as there are fewer people outside their residence. UIC students are exposed to these crimes due to the proximity and accessibility.
When looking at other data from other Universities, from 2018, such as Loyola University, Depaul University, and University of Chicago, UIC ranks on top as having the most crimes (with surrounding neighborhoods included).
When looking at the data at first it appears that Loyola has more crime incidents reported but when looking further into it more than 90% of their 693 incidents reported are from Disciplinary actions, and 28 of their incidents were reported as major crimes.
Sixty percent of UIC’s 342 reported incidents involved crimes such as arrests for major crimes, arrests for illegal possession, or crime against women. Another thing to add is many people may experience some kind of crime happen to them but they may not bother reporting it because they may think it would be a waste of time since most criminals are not caught.
“W Adams St & S Morgan St” by Sam & Sophie Images is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Juan Lima, a student that attends UIC, was robbed when he was a freshman in 2017. While he was on his way to his car, two men assaulted him and robbed him of his possessions. Unfortunately, the police did not apprehend the two men and Lima has not been able to do anything about it.
“I’m not surprised really, we always get email notifications from UIC police and almost all of them are usually about people getting robbed or an incident where we should stay away from. I got robbed once when I was walking to my car from UIC, and I had to walk pretty far just so I didn’t have to pay for parking because I can’t afford it,” said Juan Lima. “However, It is still sad to see that because I go to UIC and it doesn’t make me feel even safer, especially since it’s happened to me”.
https://infograph.venngage.com/ps/X3t6coHXLI/5-types-of-crimes-that-happened-near-uic
Source: Chicago Police Department
Allen Data Journalism 