A series of burglaries...
It was just past 6 p.m., and the sun was setting on a cold and rainy February evening in 2015. Inside her off-campus apartment, Towson University senior Kayla Trimble sat at a round wooden dining table and recounted the details of the morning the year before when she awoke to realize her home had been invaded while she was sleeping.
Trimble recalled waking up that morning in preparation for a big exam. She was about to head to campus when she realized the leather bag she carried to school every day was gone. She searched the room twice and found nothing.
Trimble grew suspicious—and afraid. The bag had contained her car keys, wallet, and planner, among other items. She said it was then that she looked to the balcony of her second-story apartment and noticed the sliding-glass door was unlocked and open. The railing on the left side of the balcony was bent and broken.
“All of a sudden I realized someone had been in my apartment,” Trimble said. She gestured outside the sliding-glass door where the above-ground patio had long since been repaired.
Trimble never thought she would be robbed. She had chosen an apartment complex she believed was one of the safest in the Towson area.
“You don’t think that someone would be able to climb up your second story balcony,” Trimble said.
Trimble called 911 and three officers from the Baltimore County Police Department arrived a few minutes after. The responding officers established a probable link to a string of burglaries that had occurred in her apartment complex within the week.
Since the burglaries occurred near Towson University’s campus, BCoPD communicated the incidents with Towson University Police Department, the university’s own police force. Three days after she was robbed, a TUPD-issued “crime alert” notification e-mail was dispatched to Trimble’s inbox.
“Off Campus…Residential Burglaries,” read the bold headline atop the crime alert notification. The mass-message informed the TU community of the burglaries, including Trimble’s, that had occurred in her community.
The university and the TUPD use crime alerts “to notify Towson University community members of situations that could affect their safety,” according to the university’s crime reporting archives.
In addition to the alerts from TUPD, Baltimore County Police released a statement at the time advising Towson students to lock doors and windows, watch what they post on social media, and call 911 to report suspicious activity. The police were unable to provide more information or a description of the suspect.
Each recipient of the university’s crime alert notifications has a unique experience with the alerts, and the alerts about burglaries helped spread awareness throughout the Towson University community and encouraged students to exercise more caution. But for Trimble, who had left her private-access balcony door unlocked that night, the warning came a little too late.
Although she had learned for the future (and now locks her doors religiously), Trimble said that she would have been more cautious if she had been notified of the crimes in her neighborhood sooner.
Trimble said that from the receiving end of the notifications, alerts lacking in immediacy were much less useful than timely alerts. She also said she would sometimes receive a high volume of alerts with details and descriptions that were “vague and irrelevant”, which she also found to be less useful.
Around the time of Trimble’s burglary, support for reforming Towson’s crime alert system was growing within the TU community. Many TU faculty, students and community members, like Trimble, pointed out issues with the frequency and immediacy of alerts as well as other issues like the vagueness and the subject matter in the alerts’ descriptions.
It wasn’t long, then, before community members began to organize and advocate for changes to the notification system.
Trimble recalled waking up that morning in preparation for a big exam. She was about to head to campus when she realized the leather bag she carried to school every day was gone. She searched the room twice and found nothing.
Trimble grew suspicious—and afraid. The bag had contained her car keys, wallet, and planner, among other items. She said it was then that she looked to the balcony of her second-story apartment and noticed the sliding-glass door was unlocked and open. The railing on the left side of the balcony was bent and broken.
“All of a sudden I realized someone had been in my apartment,” Trimble said. She gestured outside the sliding-glass door where the above-ground patio had long since been repaired.
Trimble never thought she would be robbed. She had chosen an apartment complex she believed was one of the safest in the Towson area.
“You don’t think that someone would be able to climb up your second story balcony,” Trimble said.
Trimble called 911 and three officers from the Baltimore County Police Department arrived a few minutes after. The responding officers established a probable link to a string of burglaries that had occurred in her apartment complex within the week.
Since the burglaries occurred near Towson University’s campus, BCoPD communicated the incidents with Towson University Police Department, the university’s own police force. Three days after she was robbed, a TUPD-issued “crime alert” notification e-mail was dispatched to Trimble’s inbox.
“Off Campus…Residential Burglaries,” read the bold headline atop the crime alert notification. The mass-message informed the TU community of the burglaries, including Trimble’s, that had occurred in her community.
The university and the TUPD use crime alerts “to notify Towson University community members of situations that could affect their safety,” according to the university’s crime reporting archives.
In addition to the alerts from TUPD, Baltimore County Police released a statement at the time advising Towson students to lock doors and windows, watch what they post on social media, and call 911 to report suspicious activity. The police were unable to provide more information or a description of the suspect.
Each recipient of the university’s crime alert notifications has a unique experience with the alerts, and the alerts about burglaries helped spread awareness throughout the Towson University community and encouraged students to exercise more caution. But for Trimble, who had left her private-access balcony door unlocked that night, the warning came a little too late.
Although she had learned for the future (and now locks her doors religiously), Trimble said that she would have been more cautious if she had been notified of the crimes in her neighborhood sooner.
Trimble said that from the receiving end of the notifications, alerts lacking in immediacy were much less useful than timely alerts. She also said she would sometimes receive a high volume of alerts with details and descriptions that were “vague and irrelevant”, which she also found to be less useful.
Around the time of Trimble’s burglary, support for reforming Towson’s crime alert system was growing within the TU community. Many TU faculty, students and community members, like Trimble, pointed out issues with the frequency and immediacy of alerts as well as other issues like the vagueness and the subject matter in the alerts’ descriptions.
It wasn’t long, then, before community members began to organize and advocate for changes to the notification system.
Crime reporting in the post-Clery era
Crime alert e-mail notifications began at Towson in 2005. Crime alert notifications are not unique to Towson; the distribution of crime alerts is part of compliance with a federal campus safety and crime awareness law.
The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Police and Campus Crime Statistics Act, commonly known as the Clery Act of 1998, was passed as an extension of the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act of 1990.
The Clery Act mandates full disclosure of crimes occurring on and around college campuses. According to the Clery Center, colleges are required to publish annual security policies, annual crime statistics and logs, create and implement an emergency notification and response system, and report and issue timely warnings about certain major crimes.
The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Police and Campus Crime Statistics Act, commonly known as the Clery Act of 1998, was passed as an extension of the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act of 1990.
The Clery Act mandates full disclosure of crimes occurring on and around college campuses. According to the Clery Center, colleges are required to publish annual security policies, annual crime statistics and logs, create and implement an emergency notification and response system, and report and issue timely warnings about certain major crimes.
At Towson, this “timely warning” notification system is the community crime alert system, which sends messages about crimes and emergencies.
TUPD uses a “formula” that analyzes crimes for factors such as threat level and potential ongoing danger when deciding whether to dispatch an alert, and the alert is sent instantaneously, according to a 2013 Towerlight article. The purpose of each posted alert is to inform the community of any “potential safety situations” on or around campus, according to TUPD’s website.
When a crime alert notification is shared with the community, the message is dispatched several different ways: via e-mail, text message, phone hotline, and university-run social media accounts such as Facebook and Twitter.
TUPD uses a “formula” that analyzes crimes for factors such as threat level and potential ongoing danger when deciding whether to dispatch an alert, and the alert is sent instantaneously, according to a 2013 Towerlight article. The purpose of each posted alert is to inform the community of any “potential safety situations” on or around campus, according to TUPD’s website.
When a crime alert notification is shared with the community, the message is dispatched several different ways: via e-mail, text message, phone hotline, and university-run social media accounts such as Facebook and Twitter.
A rally for reform
Crime alerts became a hot topic at Towson University after an ongoing “spike” in campus-area crime in the area began in the fall of 2013, and there was a perceived increase in the community of the frequency of crime alert notifications.
Towson interactive crime map. Blue=2013, Purple=2014, Green=2015.
*Not entire collection of "violent" crimes reported by TUPD.
Information (c) TUPD Crime Alerts
*Not entire collection of "violent" crimes reported by TUPD.
Information (c) TUPD Crime Alerts
Students felt uneasy (“living here is just not safe,” one student told WBAL in the midst of the “crime wave”), and ongoing issues members of the TU community had with the alerts were then brought to the surface.
To address the issues that they felt were affecting TU students, two Towson professors, Elyshia Aseltine and Tara Bynum, organized an open community forum called “Crime Alert: A Town Hall Discussion”.
The Town Hall forum was held in the first week of December of 2013. Participants in the discussion included Towson professors, students, community members, and TUPD officers.
At the Town Hall forum, attendees raised different concerns, primarily about the social ramifications about “potential suspect” descriptions included in the alerts, the frequency at which alerts were being sent, and the alerts’ overall purpose and usefulness.
According to the Towerlight, during the discussion Deputy Chief of Police Joe Herring explained that during the 2013 academic year, crime alerts may have increased because the total area covered by crime alerts had expanded from campus-only to an arc that encompassed all areas up to the university-affiliated Towson City Center, located on York Road near the Towson mall.
Herring also said the forum was helpful because TUPD officers and staff were able to hear new and different points of view.
Additionally, Deb Moriarty, Towson’s Vice President for Student Affairs, told WBAL that she believed the frequency of crime alerts in the fall of 2013 had not been unusually high.
Moriarty explained that an increased number of social media channels the university has been using may be a reason people feel they are getting more alerts than usual, adding that TU remained one of the safest campuses in the University System of Maryland.
To address the issues that they felt were affecting TU students, two Towson professors, Elyshia Aseltine and Tara Bynum, organized an open community forum called “Crime Alert: A Town Hall Discussion”.
The Town Hall forum was held in the first week of December of 2013. Participants in the discussion included Towson professors, students, community members, and TUPD officers.
At the Town Hall forum, attendees raised different concerns, primarily about the social ramifications about “potential suspect” descriptions included in the alerts, the frequency at which alerts were being sent, and the alerts’ overall purpose and usefulness.
According to the Towerlight, during the discussion Deputy Chief of Police Joe Herring explained that during the 2013 academic year, crime alerts may have increased because the total area covered by crime alerts had expanded from campus-only to an arc that encompassed all areas up to the university-affiliated Towson City Center, located on York Road near the Towson mall.
Herring also said the forum was helpful because TUPD officers and staff were able to hear new and different points of view.
Additionally, Deb Moriarty, Towson’s Vice President for Student Affairs, told WBAL that she believed the frequency of crime alerts in the fall of 2013 had not been unusually high.
Moriarty explained that an increased number of social media channels the university has been using may be a reason people feel they are getting more alerts than usual, adding that TU remained one of the safest campuses in the University System of Maryland.
TUPD dispatched 38 crime alerts in 2013, compared with 26 in 2014 and 23 in 2012, according to the crime alert logs. According to the FBI’s annual Unified Crime Report, however, Towson’s violent crime rate per capita has been the lowest compared with other colleges in the USM for the past six years.
The perceived shortcomings of a campus safety system |
Elyshia Aseltine, an assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice at Towson, specializes in criminality and race, co-organized the Town Hall forum, and later served on the working group panel (read the crime alert op-ed she coauthored here).
Aseltine said that vagueness, increased alert frequency, the selective subject matter of the alerts, and delayed alerts can all be detrimental rather than helpful.
When the alerts were the most frequent and problematic, Aseltine remembers many students saying they had stopped paying attention to them. The process of threat and danger assessment is a delicate balance, Aseltine acknowledges.
“How much do you emphasize? At what point do you cross the threshold where [information] is ‘useful?’” she said, and explained if the alerts become too normalized, they fade into the background.
The reporting of high-threat crimes such as muggings, assaults, and robberies can shape the community’s perspective on crime, Aseltine said. High-threat crime reporting has the potential to amplify students’ threat of victimization, and that may explain why some students had reported feeling unsafe on or around campus.
Moriarty said it is protocol for the university send out alerts for both on- and off-campus crimes, and, referencing the Clery Act, she said the university has a responsibility to inform students about crimes occurring in the area.
Since timeliness and getting the alerts out with as little delay as possible is priority for TUPD, balancing timeliness with accuracy can sometimes be difficult, Aseltine said.
“If you’re trying to be timely and get the alerts out as quickly as possible, there’s a higher risk of misinterpreting the situation,” she said.
Similarly, immediacy and straightforwardness are the most important aspects of the alerts in Trimble’s opinion.
“If we aren’t alerted when it happens, or if the alert just says ‘armed robbery’ and nothing else, then I think the information is pretty much useless. We should be able to know when things are happening,” she said.
Aseltine said that vagueness, increased alert frequency, the selective subject matter of the alerts, and delayed alerts can all be detrimental rather than helpful.
When the alerts were the most frequent and problematic, Aseltine remembers many students saying they had stopped paying attention to them. The process of threat and danger assessment is a delicate balance, Aseltine acknowledges.
“How much do you emphasize? At what point do you cross the threshold where [information] is ‘useful?’” she said, and explained if the alerts become too normalized, they fade into the background.
The reporting of high-threat crimes such as muggings, assaults, and robberies can shape the community’s perspective on crime, Aseltine said. High-threat crime reporting has the potential to amplify students’ threat of victimization, and that may explain why some students had reported feeling unsafe on or around campus.
Moriarty said it is protocol for the university send out alerts for both on- and off-campus crimes, and, referencing the Clery Act, she said the university has a responsibility to inform students about crimes occurring in the area.
Since timeliness and getting the alerts out with as little delay as possible is priority for TUPD, balancing timeliness with accuracy can sometimes be difficult, Aseltine said.
“If you’re trying to be timely and get the alerts out as quickly as possible, there’s a higher risk of misinterpreting the situation,” she said.
Similarly, immediacy and straightforwardness are the most important aspects of the alerts in Trimble’s opinion.
“If we aren’t alerted when it happens, or if the alert just says ‘armed robbery’ and nothing else, then I think the information is pretty much useless. We should be able to know when things are happening,” she said.
"Towson crime alert suspect"
Aseltine explained that out of the 38 crime alerts sent out in 2013, 30 of them described potential suspects as a “black male.” Aseltine said she had believed these descriptions (scroll through these for examples) created an unsafe learning environment for Towson University’s African-American males.
Aseltine, just like Trimble, described the alerts as very vague.
“They could have been anybody,” she said.
Aseltine, just like Trimble, described the alerts as very vague.
“They could have been anybody,” she said.
Aseltine recalls black male students in her classes who said they would read crime alerts, and if their clothes matched the suspects’ outfit description, they would feel the need to go home and change so they wouldn’t be judged or perceived negatively.
Students would also tell Aseltine that their friends would say things like, “Lock the door!” when driving by groups of black males.
Aseltine said she understands the limitations of the alerts including a finite amount of space that is able to be used for the content of the alert, including the description.
However, Aseltine believed the nature of the original alerts perpetuated racial stereotypes and potentially alienated part of the student body, without serving a truly useful purpose.
“[Towson University] has an obligation to protect vulnerable populations. We don’t have a large African-American population on campus to begin with,” she said. Therefore, maintaining a “welcoming and supportive” environment on campus should be a priority for the university just like crime control is.
Zachary Orton, a senior at Towson, agrees that the descriptions were flawed in nature.
“The alerts definitely created some sort of stigma,” Orton said, because assailants’ descriptions were all pretty much the same.
Orton recalls “most” of the crime alerts he received at Towson over the years described a vague and generally unidentifiable suspect: a black male in his twenties wearing a hoodie and jeans.
The ordeal almost turned into somewhat of a (sad) joke among Towson students, including a black student dressing as a “Towson crime alert suspect” for Halloween.
“It became a trending topic on Twitter. People were making memes,” said a student at the Town Hall forum.
“About time a Towson crime alert suspect is white,” tweeted one user.
Students would also tell Aseltine that their friends would say things like, “Lock the door!” when driving by groups of black males.
Aseltine said she understands the limitations of the alerts including a finite amount of space that is able to be used for the content of the alert, including the description.
However, Aseltine believed the nature of the original alerts perpetuated racial stereotypes and potentially alienated part of the student body, without serving a truly useful purpose.
“[Towson University] has an obligation to protect vulnerable populations. We don’t have a large African-American population on campus to begin with,” she said. Therefore, maintaining a “welcoming and supportive” environment on campus should be a priority for the university just like crime control is.
Zachary Orton, a senior at Towson, agrees that the descriptions were flawed in nature.
“The alerts definitely created some sort of stigma,” Orton said, because assailants’ descriptions were all pretty much the same.
Orton recalls “most” of the crime alerts he received at Towson over the years described a vague and generally unidentifiable suspect: a black male in his twenties wearing a hoodie and jeans.
The ordeal almost turned into somewhat of a (sad) joke among Towson students, including a black student dressing as a “Towson crime alert suspect” for Halloween.
“It became a trending topic on Twitter. People were making memes,” said a student at the Town Hall forum.
“About time a Towson crime alert suspect is white,” tweeted one user.
Collaborative Efforts Bring About Resolutions
The working group, according to the final memo, handed in its reform recommendations at the end of January 2014. On April 3, Towson University issued a memo detailing a series of changes that had been applied to the crime alert reporting system.
In order to curb the number of alerts sent to each member of the Towson community, the notification system called e2campus, which is used for text-message alerts, can now be tailored.
Users can opt to receive them in a particular time frame, subject area, or vicinity, such as receiving only weather-related alerts or only alerts of incidents that occur on campus.
In a system where users can customize, instead of having an all-or-nothing system, people should be more responsive and less likely to dismiss things, Aseltine said.
Though text alerts are optional, beginning in fall 2014, all incoming freshmen had to sign up for the alerts.
“When I came to the school I had to give them my cell phone number to receive crime alerts,” said Towson freshman Isaac Sebastian.
“I think the exposure to crimes is beneficial for students. If we didn’t know what was happening, I’m sure there would be a lot of students making stupid mistakes,” Sebastian said.
The university also decided to remove suspect descriptions from all e-mails, web notices and crime logs.
The working group, which recommended this change, “felt that suspect descriptions are no longer useful to the greater community after significant time has passed after the incident took place,” according to its final memo.
The memo also acknowledged “the negative effects that vague, general suspect descriptions could have on particular segments of our campus community, particularly African American males,” adding that some larger social issues need not be addressed through crime alert policy.
Additionally, so far in 2015, all crime alerts were sent the same day the crime occurred, except for one, which was sent the next day.
In order to curb the number of alerts sent to each member of the Towson community, the notification system called e2campus, which is used for text-message alerts, can now be tailored.
Users can opt to receive them in a particular time frame, subject area, or vicinity, such as receiving only weather-related alerts or only alerts of incidents that occur on campus.
In a system where users can customize, instead of having an all-or-nothing system, people should be more responsive and less likely to dismiss things, Aseltine said.
Though text alerts are optional, beginning in fall 2014, all incoming freshmen had to sign up for the alerts.
“When I came to the school I had to give them my cell phone number to receive crime alerts,” said Towson freshman Isaac Sebastian.
“I think the exposure to crimes is beneficial for students. If we didn’t know what was happening, I’m sure there would be a lot of students making stupid mistakes,” Sebastian said.
The university also decided to remove suspect descriptions from all e-mails, web notices and crime logs.
The working group, which recommended this change, “felt that suspect descriptions are no longer useful to the greater community after significant time has passed after the incident took place,” according to its final memo.
The memo also acknowledged “the negative effects that vague, general suspect descriptions could have on particular segments of our campus community, particularly African American males,” adding that some larger social issues need not be addressed through crime alert policy.
Additionally, so far in 2015, all crime alerts were sent the same day the crime occurred, except for one, which was sent the next day.
The new system
Towson adapted every change suggested by the working group.
Aseltine explained that there are many factors that contribute to the content, frequency, and timing of crime alerts, such as the issue of limited space for details in the body of the messages, Clery Act compliance requirements, and uniformity in training the emergency dispatchers to take down information.
However, the “new” system is much more personalized to the needs of the individual, which Aseltine hopes is encouraging students to pay attention to the alerts they do receive.
The new system is also intended to prevent the perpetuation of certain stereotypes surrounding crime suspects, according to the Towerlight.
Despite disagreement among the campus community about the best policies to implement, and though she says the crime alert reporting system will always be laden with challenges (including students ignoring the messages), Aseltine maintains that the intentions of the system are ultimately good.
Orton agrees with this statement, and he said he thinks that the goal of the campus-area crime alerts is to get students to engage in safer practices and precautions.
“They want people to do safer things like walk in buddies. By letting people know, ‘hey, this happened right around the corner,’ people will probably second guess going out at 3 a.m. by themselves,” Orton said, and he thinks the new crime alerts will have a clearer path to being more successful in doing so.
Aseltine explained that there are many factors that contribute to the content, frequency, and timing of crime alerts, such as the issue of limited space for details in the body of the messages, Clery Act compliance requirements, and uniformity in training the emergency dispatchers to take down information.
However, the “new” system is much more personalized to the needs of the individual, which Aseltine hopes is encouraging students to pay attention to the alerts they do receive.
The new system is also intended to prevent the perpetuation of certain stereotypes surrounding crime suspects, according to the Towerlight.
Despite disagreement among the campus community about the best policies to implement, and though she says the crime alert reporting system will always be laden with challenges (including students ignoring the messages), Aseltine maintains that the intentions of the system are ultimately good.
Orton agrees with this statement, and he said he thinks that the goal of the campus-area crime alerts is to get students to engage in safer practices and precautions.
“They want people to do safer things like walk in buddies. By letting people know, ‘hey, this happened right around the corner,’ people will probably second guess going out at 3 a.m. by themselves,” Orton said, and he thinks the new crime alerts will have a clearer path to being more successful in doing so.
Calm after the "crime wave" |
The man who robbed Trimble was identified and arrested during the execution of an unrelated warrant a month after the burglary. Additionally, she was able to recover some of her stolen property.
After her experience as the victim of a crime, she says she tries to read the alerts and that lately they have been a lot better. Trimble recalled an alert she had read recently:
“It wasn’t hiding anything, it wasn’t vague. It told you the situation in a way we understand, and the e-mail was sent the day the crime happened,” she said.
Trimble also believes that crime alerts are beneficial to the community at the end of the day.
“I think they’re a safe thing. I think they’re a good thing,” Trimble said.
After her experience as the victim of a crime, she says she tries to read the alerts and that lately they have been a lot better. Trimble recalled an alert she had read recently:
“It wasn’t hiding anything, it wasn’t vague. It told you the situation in a way we understand, and the e-mail was sent the day the crime happened,” she said.
Trimble also believes that crime alerts are beneficial to the community at the end of the day.
“I think they’re a safe thing. I think they’re a good thing,” Trimble said.