A 2025 KXAN article notes that although West Campus crime remains steady, students are divided on the issue. But why?
In August of last year, UTPD increased surveillance and created a new campus safety unit from pre-existing resource programs. However, as recent crime is highlighted on West Campus, students wonder how effective the University of Texas Police Department and safety protocols are. The question shouldn’t be whether they are doing enough to protect us, but what we’re doing to protect ourselves.
In June, police arrested a man for breaking into three West Campus Co-op residences.
Jakob Brown, membership coordinator at one of the broken-into residences, shared that while the summer break-in was frightening, the Co-op community’s ability to quickly notify students through public channels was the primary factor in resolving the situation safely.
However, Safe Horns president Joell McNew, who specializes in student safety through her parent-led nonprofit, believes West Campus security needs to improve its efficiency when addressing important issues.
“I kept meeting with (the previous chief of UTPD) and begging him to help us … (and) look at the (USC Safety Model’s) Yellow Jacket program, which is now the West Campus Ambassadors, (and) to look at lighting, which took seven years for us to advocate to improve lighting in West Campus to bring lighting to standard,” McNew said.
Some may argue that Austin’s lively social scene exposes students to more crime, and that UTPD could always do more. However, crime is prevalent in any city with a social scene, and UT students have resources like Safe Horns, Sure Walk and West Campus Ambassadors.
The key to collective off-campus safety is students’ ability to stay aware of their surroundings, use available safety resources and invest in self-defense training or self-defense kits.
For example, when police arrested a man for peeping into windows in West Campus on Sept. 8, government graduate student and nearby resident Phoebe Yi said she still felt safe in her neighborhood because she was prepared to defend herself.
“Don’t have your face buried into your phone while walking: be aware of your surroundings,” Yi said. “Prevention is key, so I carry pepper spray with me.”
According to the Center for Violence Prevention and Self Defense Training, individuals with self-defense training are 60% more likely to escape an attack unharmed than those without, and empirical evidence shows that empowerment self-defense (ESD) is the most cost-effective and results-driven training method.
Many value Longhorns’ safety, so at the very least, we should look out for our own and take our earbuds out for once when we’re walking home. If we want to create a safer campus, we must recognize that what changes here starts with us.
Piñon is a journalism freshman from El Paso, Texas.