THEFT ON CAMPUS: AN ANALYSIS OF LARCENY-THEFT AT AN URBAN UNIVERSITY

Abstract

ABSTRACT Larceny- theft is the most frequently reported index crime in the United States, in virtually all 50 states and on most college campuses. Larceny-theft, (herein after referred to simply as theft) is the unlawful taking of property in which no use of violence, force or fraud occurs. It thus differs from embezzlement, “con games”, forgery or similar crimes. In 1993, 7.8 million of the 14.1 million index crimes reported in the Uniform Crime Report were thefts (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1994). Review of state by state data reveals that theft is also the most prevalent index crime in each of the 50 states (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1994:68-78). More germane to the focus of this paper is that theft is also the most frequently reported crime at all but eight of the 431 college and universities which reported crime data for inclusion in the Uniform Crime Reports in 1993, (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1994:158-167). This pattern of the prevalence of theft among index crime statistics has...