The Harvard Haven

As parents deluge the campus this weekend visiting their first-year children, they may be worrying about more than just how much homework

Johnny has, or whether Jane is getting enough sleep at night. In accordance with the 1998 Clery Act, the government has recently published

a website containing crime statistics for the nations 6,000 colleges and universities, allowing parents and students to compare campus crime between schools. While this website can be a valuable resource, we caution users to take the statistics with a grain of salt, or two.

For one thing, parents might notice that Yale appears to have a far safer campus than Harvard does this despite the fact that New Haven has more murders, theft and violent crime than Cambridge, according to the U.S.

Justice Department. We find it hard to believe that given these facts,

Yale students actually witness fewer aggravated assaults and burglaries

that Harvard students do. What seems more likely is that Yale has narrowly interpreted the governments requirement that schools include crimes committed on reasonably contiguous places.

By all accounts Harvard University has interpreted this requirement

generously, using data the Cambridge, Boston and Somerville police departments as well as the Harvard University Police Department. We

certainly hope that Yale has been as generous, although we fear they have

not. On Wednesday, a Yale University Police Department spokesperson

refused to comment on the University's definitions for the statistics.

The school in New Haven aside, parents should feel comforted by the fact that Harvard is relatively safe compared to other colleges in metropolitan areas. Harvard has been publishing its crime statistics to students and parents for years, so none of the figures are surprising. In fact, over the last five years crime has been on the decrease and Cambridge itself is

one of the safest cities in the country. While, as in any city, students

should be wary about leaving doors unlocked, bicycles unattended and

walking alone at night, these precautions are not the symptoms of a

crime-plagued campus.

We hope that parents enjoy their weekend at Harvard unfettered by fear for their children's safety. Certainly, the new compilation of statistics only

shows that with a degree of common sense, Harvard students are as safe as

most.