Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog
Crime on the campuses of Maryland’s largest colleges and universities has risen considerably over the last several years leaving students, faculty and visitors feeling uneasy about parking their vehicles overnight or taking a late-night stroll. Federal law requires any institute of higher learning that participates in federal financial aid to a reported crime statistics on or campus. These statistics are helpful to ensure colleges properly maintain an adequate police force and to remind residents and visitors remain vigilant. All schools are supposed to be safe spaces, but these crime statistics are hard to ignore. From 2023 to 2024 reported crime on our state’s colleges rose 14%, and since 2019 the overall increase in crimes sits at a whopping 55%. These statistics include thefts, assaults, hate crimes, hazing, domestic violence, drug crimes and weapons offenses. Despite the steady increase in reported crime, there were still less than 800 reported criminal incidents on the 21 included Maryland college campuses in 2024. While 800 is not a huge number, the data may still prove valuable as the state does not always do a great job of providing useful and accurate crime statistics.
The most common reported crime on campuses is theft, which saw a 42% increase from 2023 to 2024. Of these thefts, the majority involved vehicles including cars and electric scooters. More than one third of all college campus crime involved vehicle thefts at the University of Maryland College Park. Electric scooters and bikes have grown exponentially in popularity, and their value makes them an obvious theft target. Anyone who owns an electric bike or scooter should take precautions including GPS tagging and commercial grade locks. Incidents of violent crime also increased in the last year, but fortunately not as drastically as thefts. Last year saw a 6% increase in violent crime and a 22% increase since 2019. The largest number of violent criminal incidents occurred at Johns Hopkins University’s Homewood Campus in Baltimore City. These violent crime numbers do not include sexual offenses. Hopkins was quick to point at that all but 4 of the 17 aggravated assaults in 2024 occurred on off-campus property though these adjacent areas are all traversed daily by students and visitors. Clearly the bulk of the incidents are occurring in the more urban settings of JHU and UMCP, but no campus is immune to criminal activity.
The Blog will continue to follow these college campus statistics and may post a follow up article as more schools respond to the alarming trend. We will also post crime statistics articles as they become available, though keep in mind that the data is often released well after the year ends. If you have a question about a criminal law or an active criminal case, contact Maryland defense lawyer Benjamin Herbst anytime for a free consultation. Benjamin specializes in crimes such as assault, domestic violence, theft and burglary and is available 7 days a week to provide a free consultation. He is an experienced Maryland DUI lawyer who has successfully handled dozens of criminal and traffic offenses on college campuses such as University of Maryland College Park, Towson University, UMES and Salisbury University. Benjamin also has extensive experienced representing cases arising from incidents at Frostburg University in Allegany County. He can be reached at 410-207-2598 to discuss your case and the possible defenses that may be available to you.
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Maryland college crime reports up, driven by vehicle theft, assault, yahoo.com.