Jonathan Winters, Lewis Levenberg, Ian Smalley, Lauren Burgoon, Jake Landis and Francesca Tripodi

• How do individuals form their perceptions of safety, community, trust, and fear?
• What behaviors indicate greater or lesser fear?
• How do groups react to news of danger? To a physical/existential threat?
• How do communications technologies generally affect those perceptions (safety, fear, community and trust)?
• Do continuous e-mail alerts give students the impression of an unsafe campus? 
• Are these impressions accurate compared to crime statistics in the area?
• How do incoming students’ impressions of campus safety compare to a senior’s, or a graduate student’s?
• What are some common impression of the identities of criminals, victims, administrators (those who send the alerts), and so on?
• How do users see the alerts? – As news? Junk mail? Conversation? Propaganda? 
• How do the alerts affect their readers’ behaviors? Alone? In groups?

What gaps in the research could be explored using this context?

• Why might a victim report a crime, or why might they not? Do the alerts play a role in that decision?
• How frequently do students read the e-mails? 
• Does gender play a role in student decisions to change their behaviors based on alerts?
• Are students likely to relay any fears (i.e. to roommates, classmates, etc.) that result from crime e-mails? If so, does this effectively change other people’s behaviors even without the direct influence of the e-mails?
• What were the motivating factors for 98% of Georgetown business owners, according to The Hoya, to join the DCAlert program (receiving text messages when a violent crime has been committed in the area)?

How might this discipline answer your questions?  What is your research plan?

Based on our initial interviews, we would test our hypothesis that e-mail alerts construct the perception that Georgetown is an unsafe campus or neighborhood. We would be  measuring:
1) how frequently e-mail alerts are read
2) if by reading these alerts students change their behavior on campus
3) the rate at which perception of safety on campus is affected by the alerts

We would conduct a large-scale survey of freshman students on campus. If our hypothesis is correct, the data collected should show a pattern that students who read e-mails will accordingly change their behavior to avoid areas on campus where incidents occurred.

We would first give the students a map of Georgetown, and ask them to color or shade in the areas that they consider to be the most dangerous. This method should provide personal interaction with the interviewees, so that we can also report on non-verbal cues in their responses. We would then compare the students’ maps against actual crime rates in those areas to test for whether their impressions are accurate.

Next, we would conduct a mass electronic survey to all incoming freshman and exiting seniors. Sample survey questions could include:

    * What is your gender?
    * Do you read campus safety alerts?

    * What do you consider to be safe and unsafe places on campus?
    * What do you consider to be safe and unsafe places off campus?
    * Do you lock your doors/windows? Follow up: when you are at home as well?
    * Do security alerts factor into your campus housing decisions?
    * Do you receive alerts from outside the college (DC police?)

* *(See attached survey)**

The survey would be distributing using the same technologies as the alerts — e-mail, RSS, text messages — so that we can assume a correlation between survey respondents and the security alert audience. This will also give us an understanding of whether perceptions of danger are correlated with length of residence in the area. 

Discipline Two: Criminology

What kinds of questions would this discipline be interested in about this research context?

• How often are crimes reported by their victims?
• How often do police apprehend a suspect in cases where the crime was reported to them?
• What is the crime rate at Georgetown University compared to other campuses in the DC metro area?
• What is the crime rate in Georgetown compared to neighborhoods/precincts/wards/etc. in the DC metro area?
• Who are the victims and perpetrators of the crimes in Georgetown? How does that compare to the student body?
• What types of crimes are committed on campus? What constitutes a “crime hot spot”, and is Georgetown or GU a “hot spot”?
• Who has access to the crime rate information, and how is it disseminated?
• How does that compare to alerts about recent criminal activity?
• Do distinctions among violent/nonviolent, property/personal, and other types of crimes factor into the decision to send alerts?
• Do the alerts impact the crime rate over a long period of time?

What gaps in the literature could be explored using this context?

We know that crime statistics are available for community review and we know that Georgetown University students, faculty and staff are receiving Public Safety e-mail alerts, but these two data sets have not yet been put into context with each other. No existing research addresses the possibility that alerts contribute to fear of crime. 

This project might also explore some comparisons between crime rates in Georgetown neighborhood and on campus, between Georgetown and other neighborhoods/campuses around the DC metro area, and between reported crime and alert rates, none of which are already available.

How might this discipline answer our questions?  What is your research plan?

Criminology often uses statistics to tell a story about crime. Our research is focused on the relationship of perception to reality, and how perceptions are affected by “instantaneous” technologies. We rely on crime statistics gathered by criminologists at the Metropolitan Police Department to provide the “reality” side of this relationship equation. This assumes the accuracy of the data provided by the MPD public records.

In addition to longitudinal analyses of data to determine crime trends, criminologists often conduct geographical analyses for the sake of comparison. We will collect data for different geographic areas within the District of Colombia in order to determine how Georgetown University ranks as a crime “hot spot” in the district. Further research would expand this geographical analysis beyond the border of DC to compare crime rates in Georgetown to those in other campus – both those that have instituted alert systems and those that have not.

Based on our initial research, it seems that Georgetown has a lower crime rate than some other universities in DC. Police Service Area 206, which includes Georgetown University, has had 14 violent crimes reported in the last 60 days.  By contrast, Police Service Area 304, including Howard University, has had 29 violent crimes reported in the same period. Gallaudet University is in PSA 504, which has had 60 violent crimes in the last 60 days. (Source: crimemap.dc.gov)

At the Police District level of analysis, the Second Police District, which contains Georgetown University, is not considered a “crime hotspot” in DC. In 2005, the total number of crimes over seven measured categories in the second district was 2,945. The districts with the highest crime were the third district with 7,734 and the first district, with 5,977. The second district had the lowest number of crimes in all of DC. The average for all the police districts was 4,711.  (Source: Metropolitan Police Department Statistical Report, 2001-2005)

If the correlation between this reality and perception of danger is strong, perception of danger should be less at Georgetown University than on these other campuses and in other DC neighborhoods that are “hotter” spots for crime. If perception is skewed through Georgetown’s e-mail alert system, the correlation will be lower.