Released security report reveals surprising statistics

photo courtesy of Dakota Cunningham

George Mason University’s 2012 Annual Security Report detailed a surprising change in crime rates over the past three years.

The report covers on and off-campus housing in Fairfax as well as Prince William and Arlington.

Assistant Police Chief George Ginovsky explained that during the past year two former members of the band The Grateful Dead performed at Mason, and 30 fans were arrested with counts related to possession of narcotics with intent to distribute on school property. This level of drug related arrests is uncommon for Mason, and looking at the statistics alone on the small level makes it impossible to discern trend from anomaly.

Police Chief Michael Lynch agreed with Ginovsky, but added “it’s important to look, not just at the drug arrests overall, which have increased ten-fold, but specifically at on-campus arrests, which to be fair have doubled, but that’s to be expected with a university that has grown like George Mason has.”

Drug arrests on public property monitored by the Mason have risen from 11 in 2009 to 120 in 2011. However, these numbers include the arrests made at the Patriot Center. The overall drug arrests on campus showed substantial but less dramatic increase, from 71 in 2009 to 151 in 2011.

As for combatting drug usage on George Mason’s campus, Lynch says that technology takes precedent over manpower.

“We’ve seen monstrous technology increases over the past few years, and our police have managed to keep pace,” Lynch said.

Meanwhile, Lynch claims there has not been an increase in staff.

“We’ve only gotten 3 new police officers over the past 3 years, 2 in 2010 and 1 in 2011," Lynch said. "We’re not requesting any new police staff at this time, our assessment is that our current staff is adequately equipped to handle the needs of the campus.”

On-campus burglaries spiked from 4 in 2009 to 29 in 2011. This does not include burglaries in student residencies, which rose from 4 in 2009 to 18 in 2011. Alcohol-related arrests and referrals remained consistent between 60 and 160 arrests on and off campus with 150 and 250 referrals.

Ginovsky wished to discourage students from reading too far into the statistics.

“If a peaceful town experiences its first murder, and then a second murder shortly thereafter, reading into this it would seem that violent crime had increased over 200%, but in truth it’s just a small community, and that’s the way it is here. We don’t have a lot of crime, so it’s really impossible to read any trends out of the data from the security report,” Ginovsky said.

One explanation for the increase in crimes is Mason’s increased enrollment. Mason’s population has risen from 19,702 undergraduate students in 2009 to 20,782 in 2012. Given the general population increase, a proportional rise in crime is not unexpected. In the meantime, the Mason Police department says they do what they can to stop the crime on campus but it can never be entirely eradicated.

In the meantime, Ginovsky wanted to assure students they can help prevent theft.

“I can almost guarantee students will be free of crime if they lock their doors and don’t leave their stuff unattended,” Ginovsky said.