IUPD says most campus arrests made in McNutt

Providing students with a place to live? Check.\nMaking the place secure with minimal arrests? Maybe.\nWith 11 residence halls on campus, Residential Programs and Services works to ensure that the place students live are safe and comfortable, Bill Shipton, director for student programs and services, said. Despite these efforts, however, RPS can't control all the arrests and situations that occur within the halls.\nMcNutt Quad, followed by the rest of the residence halls in the northwest neighborhood -- Briscoe and Foster Quads -- garners more arrests than the other halls on campus, said IUPD Capt. Jerry Minger. He added that he believed that the main reason for this trend is because McNutt has such high occupancy. \n"McNutt has a larger capacity … relatively speaking we have more incidents that occur because of more residents," Minger said. "If we have a group of 200 people and we have a group of five, we are going to have more incidents in the group of 200 people."\nSmaller residence halls like Read Center or Willkie Quad have fewer people, resulting in fewer complaints, Minger said.\n"I think it's safe to say that the residence halls in the northwest neighborhood tend to have slightly higher numbers than other residence centers," Shipton said. "For one, they are the three largest residence halls, so more arrests … there are more students and a very high percent of freshman -- as we know freshman sometimes have more difficulty making good decision as upperclassmen."\nGenerally speaking, Bloomington ranks in the upper 80 to 90 percent of safest campuses across the state, Minger said. \n"I think all of our halls are generally safe," Shipton said. "But it only takes one person or a handful of people to create unsafe conditions -- that's when issues of safety can occur." \nBetween September 2005 and June 2006, Read Center had 43 incidents that occurred in the dorm, while McNutt Quad had 137 incidents that occurred. In the Central neighborhood, 80 incidents occurred at Teter Quad, according to police reports. \nMinger said the IUPD database codes the arrests, but doesn't specify where the arrest occurred. This is because people arrested may not live where the crime occurred. \n"The location of the arrest many times doesn't have anything to do with when the crime occurred," Minger said. "What you can infer is that this is the location of the crime."\nThe age levels of students in the residence halls -- freshman being the majority -- are sometimes an area of concern.\nMinger said it seemed to him that upperclassmen living in on-campus apartments experience fewer incidents than students in dorms.\nShipton added that some freshmen come with maturity issues since most of them are experiencing independence for the first time.\n"I don't think any of (the residence halls) are any less safe," Minger said. "The safe conditions or unsafe conditions are created by residents that live in the facility, and by that, I mean the overwhelming majority."\nFor example, Minger said a resident once stole laptops, books and money. However, the robber did not forcefully enter the room, instead targeting those that were left unlocked.\nAlso, Minger said the overwhelming majority of intoxicated individuals that walk into other people's rooms thinking they are somewhere else are going into rooms that were left unlocked and not entering forcibly.\n"Does this mean unsafe?" Minger said. "It was a condition caused by the residents themselves. It wasn't because the location was unsafe"