{"id":283550,"date":"2025-10-07T08:12:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T08:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/283550\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T08:12:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T08:12:16","slug":"despite-division-of-public-safety-warning-penn-students-report-confidence-in-campus-safety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/283550\/","title":{"rendered":"Despite Division of Public Safety warning, Penn students report confidence in campus safety"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\"04-19-23-penn-police-station-abhiram-juvvadi-1\"\/
\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tPenn Police station on Apr 19, 2023.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCredit: Abhiram Juvvadi<\/a> \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Despite recent coverage of heightened security measures in response to rising crime on campus, Penn community members told The Daily Pennsylvanian that they remain confident about the University\u2019s safety.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

Reports from national outlets came after the Division of Public Safety sent a Sept. 25 message to the Penn community noting \u201cmultiple recent reports\u201d of \u201cgroups of young people slapping or striking individuals in the head.\u201d The notice stated that activity was located primarily in the area of 40th to 38th streets, from Market Street to Locust Street.\u00a0\n\t\t<\/p>\n

The DPS message stated that individual members \u201cstrike the unknown victim with open hand or closed fist\u201d \u2014 connecting the incidents to a \u201cnationwide social media trend.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Division of Public Safety is actively addressing this in multiple ways including adding additional police and security presence in the area and working with our City partners to stop the issue,\u201d the DPS message read. \u201cWe will continue, as long as necessary, to take steps to stop these events from happening so members of our community feel safe and unthreatened.\u201d\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

A request for comment was left with a DPS spokesperson.\n<\/p>\n

In interviews with the DP, Penn community members expressed some concerns about crime on campus but remained largely confident in the University\u2019s safety efforts.\n\t<\/p>\n

A Penn security guard \u2014 who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation \u2014 said they feel that Penn\u2019s campus is safe but that \u201cpeople just tend to do crazy things at night.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like the University of Pennsylvania probably could do a little bit better with the security on the campus, as far as outside [and] patrolling the streets,\u201d they said.\n<\/p>\n

Still, the guard stated their belief that Penn is \u201cdoing their best to get in control of everything.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

College first year Serena Lin said that she has recently noticed an increase in police presence around campus, especially at night. However, Lin attributed the heightened security to \u201cfrat parties\u201d and \u201cprotests on campus,\u201d stating that she has not \u201cdirectly\u201d witnessed an increase in crime.\n<\/p>\n

College sophomore Alexander Lee told the DP that he \u201cappreciate[s]\u201d the DPS public safety alert, and credited the division with doing a \u201cgood job.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

“If they send [the alerts] out, I tend to avoid those areas,\u201d Lee said.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

He stated that he has not noticed increased police presence or crime on campus, aside from seeing police officers on College Green late at night. Lee expressed his hope that DPS will \u201ccover more area\u201d \u2014 adding that the department can \u201calways strive to do more, especially when it comes to public safety.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

College sophomore Phoebe Martin echoed a similar sentiment, emphasizing that she did not feel like police presence had especially increased this school year.\u00a0\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\tSign up for our newsletter<\/p>\n

Get our newsletter, DP Daybreak, delivered to your inbox every weekday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll see guards outside Acme, but I always saw that last year too,\u201d Martin said. \u201cIt\u2019s always nice to have people around sometimes, especially as a young woman.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

College sophomore Reina Gammarino cited the availability of Penn Police escorts at night as a resource that makes her \u201cfeel a lot safer.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\u201cOverall, I feel pretty safe, especially on Locust,\u201d Gammarino said. \u201cI think it\u2019s good they\u2019re increasing police presence, just because Penn tends to have that reputation of being unsafe among the top schools in the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Daily Pennsylvanian is an independent, student-run newspaper. Please consider making a donation<\/a> to support the coverage that shapes the University. Your generosity ensures a future of strong journalism at Penn.<\/p>\n

Donate<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Penn Police station on Apr 19, 2023. Credit: Abhiram Juvvadi Despite recent coverage of heightened security measures in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":283551,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,8432,8430,4219,64517,50,1448,2830,1311,11027,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,45998],"class_list":{"0":"post-283550","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-beats","10":"tag-centerpiece","11":"tag-crime","12":"tag-crime-legal","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-pa","15":"tag-pennsylvania","16":"tag-philadelphia","17":"tag-studentlife","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa","24":"tag-west-philly"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115331882820520766","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}