AN ANALYSIS OF PERCEIVED SAFETY IN THE BUILT AND SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT OF AN EDUCATIONAL FACILITY

Abstract

University and college campuses are, in essence, a "perfect storm" for motivated offenders. Due to a campus' lack of guardianship, ease of unrestricted site access, and readily available pool of potential victims, administration must attend to the safety concerns of all campus members. This thesis reports on a research study conducted to test the efficacy of a predictive model for assessing site-specific campus safety. A 56-item online survey was distributed to all members of the Pendleton University population. Three hundred and fourteen full-time equivalent students, staff, and faculty members completed the questionnaire. The findings indicated that, while the campus was perceived as a relatively safe location, avoidance behaviour was being exhibited by a large proportion of the campus community. Upon further analysis, using the Traditional Fear Index (TFI) and the Extended Fear Index (EFI), eleven individual sites across the Pendleton campus were examined with regards to a number of proximate environmental and social variables. Using linear regression, it was revealed that the EFI with the addition of traffic as a variable was the most significant predictor of perceptions of safety.