LSU ranked No. 9 among most dangerous U.S. campuses

Citing statistics from FBI Uniform Crime Reports, Business Insider magazine says the flagship LSU campus in Baton Rouge is the ninth-most dangerous college campus in the United States. According to the FBI statistics, there’s an average of 26 violent crime incidents on the LSU campus each year and about 474 property crimes. “There were an alarming 22 robberies in 2011, among other violent crimes,” notes Business Insider, adding that it averaged FBI crime data per capita from 2008 to 2011 for campuses with 10,000 students or more to create the rankings. (The LSU campus is listed as having 29,451 students in the report.) While LSU Police Department Public Information Officer Capt. Cory Lalonde says the statistics cited in the report are accurate, but adds they can also be misleading. “Yes, we did have 22 robberies last year, but over half of those incidents were cell phone thefts” that were not armed robberies, he says. “We also do have a lot of vehicle burglaries, but most of them are not break-ins; they’re incidents in which someone has left their doors unlocked. We’re not immune to crime on campus—it’s going to happen—but the great majority of crimes we see on campus are crimes of opportunity.” With an average of 49 violent crimes per year and 921 property crimes, the University of California–Los Angeles is ranked as the nation’s most dangerous college campus. You can check out the complete rankings here. —Steve Sanoski