SMC On Safety In Santa Monica
Safewise.com survey ranks Santa Monica as one of the most dangerous cities in Southern California. However, students and staff have a different opinion.
A safewise.com survey reported on March 8 that Santa Monica is among the least safe cities in Southern California.
Illustration by Aaron Schuchman
The survey ranked Santa Monica as 224 out of 230 cities for its property and violent crime rates. Safewise's survey claimed that according to FBI crime statistics, Santa Monica has a rate of six violent crimes and 42.6 property crimes per 1,000 residents.
Safewise's survey also claims that, "54% of Californians said they are highly concerned about violent crime happening to them—that’s 13 percentage points higher than the US average."
Despite these claims, Santa Monica College (SMC) students and staff members disputed the accuracy of the survey. In truth, the crime rate isn’t high in every corner of Santa Monica, with very few crimes reported at SMC.
According to SMC Chief of Police Johnnie Adams, “The crime rate at SMC is very low, in fact we have taken less than fifteen crime reports since the beginning of the year,” Chief Adams said. “Most of them are minor vandalism and a couple of hit and run reports.”
Chief Adams believes the reason SMC and the surrounding areas are so safe is due to the schools “one thousand, three hundred cameras throughout all of our campuses...," as well as an "electronic locking system for our doors which automatically locks many of our locations remotely every night.”
In addition to that, Chief Adams stated that the SMC police department does “... concentrated patrols in areas that they feel are important to have high visibility.”
Furthermore, the SMC police department has an app called LiveSafe. Chief Adams described the app as "... a force multiplier where our community can use it to call or text an activity so we can respond quickly.”
In terms of student safety, SMC sophomore criminal justice Melany Arguello has reported she feels no threat of danger when walking around Santa Monica or SMC.
“In terms of violence I feel pretty safe,” Arguello said when asked about how she felt about her safety. “During the day there are lots of people around so I'm able to walk around with my jewelry and feel fine.”
"It's when I get close to Downtown L.A is when I start to feel uncomfortable," Arguello said.
Arguello did recall one incident during her freshman year at SMC, where, while walking near the Santa Monica Pier with an African American friend, they had "the N-word yelled at us by some woman.” The Sophomore went on to explain that “incidents like that haven't happened since.”
Arguello expressed no fear towards walking around at night, as she makes sure to bring friends with her so she feels more comfortable.
Adams assured students that the SMC Police Department wants to continue to do its best to ensure safety for everyone in and around campus. "At night should students or staff feel unsafe we also offer to escort them to their cars," Chief Adams said.
SMC highly encourages all individuals to report any incidents of vandalism/sexual misconduct to the SMC or local police as soon as possible by calling the SMC Police Department, (310)-434-4300, for any emergency situations that may happen on campus.
