Safe as Houses?
These are scenes to get the tabloid hack in everyone fulminating. A Lincoln student is attacked with an iron bar as he attempts to prevent intruders getting into his college. Another student is punched in the face outside a club. What is happening to the modern world?
At the same time, a contradictory tendency recalls happenings from Oxford mythology. Time-hallowed instances of Town versus Gown tension are brought to mind, the substance of many a guided tour. Someone mentions a seventeenth-century disturbance, which began when a student decided to throw his ale (possibly with glass attached) at the landlord of a Carfax inn. The resulting brawl soon ballooned into riots in Broad Street. More recent tales are recounted of an atmosphere of tension brought about in a pre-war world where students lived in an environment sealed-off from their fellow Oxford residents. Forbidden from fraternising with the locals, they provoked resentment, sometimes spilling into violence, with their sallies into the town. Is it that students are being targetted once more (or as ever?) by 'Townies'?
Figures are hard to come by. The police do not collect statistics as to whether a crime involves a student. No note is made of the occupation of victims of burglary, for example. Yet figures are available to tell us how safe Oxford is in general. In 1998, figures for Oxford suggested that any given individual was likely to be a victim of a crime once every 6 years. This compares to a figure of once every 11 years for England and Wales. On average a given Oxford citizen could expect to be the victim of a violent crime once every 122 years, as compared to once every 147 years for England and Wales. Given that the chance of being a victim is higher in cities than in rural areas, Oxford does not seem particularly dangerous. This is not Chicago in the 1920s.
But there are certain indications that students have extra reason to be careful. This is because our living arrangements mean that we are relatively likely to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. For example, in a 'Crime and Disorder Audit' carried out in 1998, it was discovered that 56% of people surveyed feared being a victim of mugging or of violence in Oxford city centre. This compares to a figure of 18% for the country as a whole. In the same survey, the city centre (especially Bonn Square) and Cowley Road were identified as places where it was felt that disorder was likely to occur. Since many students live around the centre and Cowley Road, one might expect them to be at increased risk. This is supported by evidence of when, where and against whom assaults, for example, tended to occur. 44% of assaults in the city centre occurred between midnight and 4am. Many involved drinking. And who would be out, perhaps a little less than sober, at that time of night? 35% of assaults were against, and also by, 16-25 year olds. Students fit the demographic.
All things considered, the police find it surprising how little trouble students tend to get into. Thames Valley Police's College Liaison Officer notes that for their age group students are relatively seldom victims of crime, and that the crime rate around colleges is relatively low. The crime students most often encounter is bike theft. Like many others in their age group they are victims of theft of mobile phones, lap-tops and other small, valuable pieces of kit. Yet these crimes usually occur in pubs, clubs and coffee shops, and seldom involve violence. Since students frequently live in shared and rented accommodation, with attendant low security, they are proportionally at greater risk from burglary. But the same can be said of young people of a variety of occupations in Oxford.
There is, then, little evidence of significant Town versus Gown tension in early twenty-first-century Oxford. Considering that many students live in the centre of a modern city, and dare to traipse the streets in the early hours of the morning, they do surprisingly well in avoiding crime. But all the same, kids, keep an eye on that mobile phone, and don't do anything I wouldn't do. It doesn't seem you are doing...
2001 JC, a New College student, punched outside Park End.
January New's Junior Dean gets hit after a night at Filth. Student stabbed yards from the Westgate Centre in broad daylight.
February Lincoln student, Richard Riley, gets beaten up on his way to halls of residence in Bear Lane. Rugby player punched in face - case in court shortly.
21st Feb 2002